I miss World of Warcraft. But not enough to play it again.
I recently listened to some of Penny Arcade's podcasts, and they raised an interesting point. Jerry was spending real-life money for an upgrade in "Oblivion," a game that no one would see except him. And also, it seems the upgrade didn't actually DO anything. It just made his horse look pretty. Mike brought up the point that online games had changed his view and that playing single-player games like Kingdom Hearts wasn't very satisfying to him anymore, because, well, who cares if you beat Kingdom Hearts? On the other hand, having the coolest armor and having the respect of your guildmates and noobs across the server...that's the kind of respect that is EARNED.
(Note to self: How do I make sure that my nerdy friends who read this aren't totally bored by my watered-down explanations, while maintaining the interest my nongamer friends who probably don't understand a word I'm saying anyway? I'm sure I'll think of something. Ooh, try to work bacon in somehow. Everyone likes bacon!)
I was willing to give the most famous MMORPG a try, even though I had sworn never to play them. For you nongamers, that stands for "massive multi-player online role-playing game," and I had a personal vendetta against it because developer SquareEnix had released the 11th game of my favorite series, Final Fantasy, on this platform, and they didn't even ask my opinion.
While I would be plunged into the mystical world I had grown to love, acting as a character designed to my every specification, I would have to TALK to other people! I would have to team up with them to complete quests, barter with them to get deals on some extra armor they had, make fun of Chuck-Norris-inspired catchphrases used in General Chat. This was not something I wanted, so I folded my arms and sent evil mind rays to SquareEnix to change the next FF game back to single-player.
But when I was strapped for an idea for Justin's birthday, I got him World of Warcraft. As I was introduced to this world, it didn't look so bad. As mature players often do, Justin was able to team with normal people to complete quests and avoid guild drama. A guild, for the uninformed, is when you group with a few (or hundreds of) people on your server so you will always have like-minded people who need the same quests, and sometimes people can give you their hand-me-down armor and weapons. Guild drama, on the other hand, is when someone fights a battle with you and then steals the bow and arrow that you had fought for hours for, even though they can't even use it because they're a damn priest, so you sic your pet panther on them and laugh as it claws their eyes out. Sort of like that. But that doesn't happen with mature people.
Anyway, one day, Justin had to take a break for some reason, and he was killing some monsters with a friend of his. He had to keep her healed while she was attacked, so he showed me some of the buttons, told his friend that I was stepping in, and went off to eat or sleep or look at the sky or something.
I was terrified. THIS PERSON'S LIFE WAS IN MY HANDS! I couldn't let down this complete stranger, and I just kept clicking ravenously, keeping her healed, even though she was not necessarily even in a fight. All in all, I learned that the game wasn't so bad.
I started playing it when I lived in Pittsburgh before my 3 PM - 11 PM shift, and those are some of my best memories of the game, running around Elwynn Forest with the Pure-Moods-like music playing softly and eating Ruffles with french onion dip. It didn't take me long, though, to realize how different this game is than others I usually like. First, I have always loved games for their storylines. This game had a few weak attempts at a storyline, but only if you enjoyed reading pages and pages of quests that summed up to read:
"My daughter is sick and close to death. The goddess Elune surely looks down upon this house. Perhaps I shouldn't have made a deal with the demon who walks these forests. Anyway, I need you to kill 4 antivirus trees and bring me 1 trout.
The trout is for me. I'm hungry."
After a few months of playing "Animal Crossing," I hit the radish jackpot, and paid off my house and all furniture I could have ever wanted. It was only then that I realized: "Wait...all this game is about is me bringing shit back and forth from house to house. And sometimes tedious digging crap up or fishing for stuff. This sucks!"
It took me until level 40 in WoW to realize: "Wait...this game is just paper dolls for boys! I go out and kill a few bears for some douche NPC who can't do it himself, all with the hopes that I'll get a pretty new hat that will impress my guild. This sucks!"
But hearing this Penny Arcade podcast gave me a whole different perspective. If impressing people online means is superficial and means nothing to me, then why do I play single-player games where I don't even have the CHANCE to superficially impress people? I guess it all comes down to what it means to me.
I explain this for the nongamers, because anyone else knows why we play games. (Really cheesy emotional crap ahead.) Games affect me the way really good music does, or a really kick ass movie or TV episode. Or a book, or a beautiful view on a hike. Or petting a kitten. The game Shenmue has kitten-petting options within it.
When I play a game with a great storyline, I have so much emotionally invested in it that it makes me happy. I look back on countless summers spent indoors beating games with my brother and Jordan, and I have such great memories.
I don't know, I guess WoW got so diluted after some of the low-level stuff that there wasn't much of a storyline. And this was also a game where people with the most free time really were the most respected because they *could* play endlessly, and maybe they had a high tolerance for just killing monsters to get experience. I realized that I would never get to the level that the best players got to, and that was discouraging. And if I did get to a really high level and had decent armor, I would have spent a lot of time doing a whole lot of work that was kind of tedious for the most part.
I don't try to play single-player games to 100%, trying to get every item and every side quest. I have fun with the storyline and leveling up, and fighting the final boss is very satisfying to me. Competing in a mad rush every time a new MMO expansion comes out to get to the new level cap with the new races, just to wait for the situation to repeat itself with no ending in sight is NOT satisfying to me. (See "Foxtrot" comic)
So I quit WoW before the Burning Crusade expansion came out. And like I said, I do miss the FEELING I had, running around with general chat off, doing quests on my own, not really worrying about proving myself to anyone. I'd like to try another MMO someday, one where I could get into the story. I keep my fingers crossed for Star Wars or Star Trek, but I'm also worried that they could bastardize the world beyond all canon, and I wouldn't enjoy myself.
Or, like Final Fantasy 11, the economy could be destroyed by gold farmers -- people who spend their days killing monsters endlessly, then selling the gold for real money, then when all the characters spend real money to be rich in the game, it makes the prices set in the Auction House worthless, forcing everyone to either farm for gold or jump out of a skyscraper like a Depression stock broker.
But I'm no economist. I just want to play a fun game. And, uh, eat bacon.
So, when we last left off, our hero was being asked for $32 to help out a stranger in need.
Like I said, I didn't believe his story. A few things didn't feel right, and I really, really didn't want to be talking to him anymore. My options flashed through my mind.
I could hop in my car and mow him over. Okay, that was kind of a joke, but I considered how fast I could get the gas pump out of my car, hop in the driver's seat, and speed off. He respected my personal space, but if he moved fast and saw the adrenaline rush in my eyes, he could stop me. I didn't know what he was really after -- an easy $32 con or a nice rape/stab combo. This option was out.
I could tell him the truth, that I didn't have any cash on me, and a lie, that I didn't have a debit card to use at an ATM. Apologize and try to weasel out of the conversation that way. This was probably the best option, but I foresaw more twists and turns. Maybe he would throw some other excuse out that I couldn't field, like his cat was pregnant with kittens in the car, and next thing I knew, I would be busing tables at the nearby Denny's to get tips to pay the poor guy off.
Final option, I go into the gas station ATM under the watchful eye of the teller, just pay the guy an even $40 Please-Don't-Rape-Me fee, and be on my way. This is the option I went with, and by far, it is one of the stupidest.
I calmly put the pump in its cradle, screwed in my gas cap, and walked with him to the ATM. I always take my keys out of the ignition when I fill up at gas stations because I'm afraid someone will steal my car, and now I was thankful of this overly cautious habit.
We walked together to the ATM only to realize it was behind inside the locked gas station mini mart. The teller shook her head at us, eyeing the New Yorker weirdo. We walked back to my car, and I was about ready to tell him "Whelp...time to hit the old dusty trail," when he asked if there were any other ATMs in the area. I weakly looked around and shrugged. He pointed at the 24-hour Denny's, which had one inside. He was being tenacious. I sighed and said to myself, "$40 to not rape you isn't so bad. You drive over, come back, hand it through the window, no problem! He can't do anything if you just slide the money out! Yeah! I'm like a detective!"
He kept shaking his head, chuckling, and making light of his problem. He kept offering his jacket as collateral. He kept saying he would pay me back $100 the next day. He just had to get home. In the back of my mind, looking down the empty streets, I worried about the off chance that his story was true, and I really was the only one who could help him.
I sighed a few more times and agreed to go to the Denny's, about a 10-second drive down the road. THEN he walked over to my passenger's side door. And, as I am prone to do in awkwardly ridiculous situations...I burst out laughing.
"Ho, no, you're not!" I laughed.
"Oh, I thought I would just come --"
I laughed some more.
"No way. I'll get it and bring it back." He wasn't buying it.
I eyed my 0-gauge knitting needle on my console, about half the diameter of a screwdriver and tapered to a point. They laughed at me for knitting in traffic, but who's laughing and not getting raped now?! ME!
"You promise you'll be back?"
"Yes."
"Okay, thanks a lot then. Do you want my coat?"
No, I did not want his fucking coat. Jeez.
I hopped in the car and sped towards Denny's. On the way, I called Melissa and explained the whole story in 10 seconds. I walked into the Denny's and saw his silhouette waiting back at the gas station.
Luckily, Melissa is more overly cautious and paranoid than I am, and she told me to get the hell out of there faster than the speed of a knitting-needle stab.
"But...what if my description of events is wrong? What if he really just is a poor guy stuck in a bad situation?"
Melissa, who, might I remind readers, routinely calls ME up to ask if I think she's left the oven on, immediately dismissed any thought that this was a normal guy, and told me to get back in the car and speed off. Which I did, in the opposite direction, even though I lived in the direction where I would have to pass him again.
When I got home, I woke Justin up and told him the story, and he didn't seem too worried until I realized I had left my gas receipt at the pump. In California, we have to verify that the credit card isn't stolen by inputting our zip code into the machine, and I worried that it also printed our address on the receipt.
We found a few others and realized this wasn't the case. I guess it would be kind of silly to ask you to input a zip code as a security device, then print it for the world to see and steal, but I was shaken up. Ooh, what if he really WAS a nice guy who was stranded, but now I pissed him off, and he's gonna come find me? Or what if he is much more evil than just a $32 con man, and would patrol every street in LA until he found a car like mine with Pennsylvania plates? (Then kill me)
After a few days of playing this scene over and over in my head, I realized what had felt wrong to me. First, the company is DreamWorks SKG, not SKG DreamWorks. Second, come on, a guy who is willing to pay me back $100 for a $32 loan doesn't have a cell, or someone to call collect to help him out?
It scared me, too, how close I had come to something really bad. The gas station ATM could have been open, and when we got there, he could have demanded I wipe out my checking account. He could have tried harder to get into my car. I understand why I was an easy mark. Out-of-state plates, young, female alone late at night. He probably saw those plates and faked an accent to try to establish an east coast connection with me.
A few days later, I learned that was true. Justin and I were in Costco, and I saw him. I had spent the last few days jittery and terrified I would run into him again, and what happens but my every fear and paranoia was CONFIRMED. Only he didn't see me. He had another mark with him. I didn't know what story he had used to get into Costco, but he didn't have any accent at all, and he was actually trying to talk with some guy about the Italian language over the free samples.
And what did our fearless leader do at this point? Stab him right there with the knitting needle she now carried on her person everywhere? Rape him with said knitting needle?
No, our fearless leader burst into tears and hid behind a 50 pound bag of rice in the next aisle. Fearless leader's boyfriend kept watch at the end of the aisle until the con man passed, but I really think it was just an excuse for fearless leader's boyfriend to compare spice prices without the fearless leader nagging that it's a fucking gallon of Rosemary. You're not going to find a better deal! There is no spice conspiracy!
Clearly I choose my conspiracies.
Anyway, I haven't seen him again, and I haven't really talked about it much because it was kind of a scary ordeal. And, yeah, there was a chance that he reads this website and would see that I talked about him and would then come and kill me. Yes, this is the kind of paranoia I have to live with every day.
It's a gift...and a curse.
So, in conclusion, if any stranger ever tries to talk to you, stab them immediately in the eye with your knitting needle.
Well, I'm home sick today waiting to go to the doctor's, and I realized that my anxiety for this damn month to end has caused me to not update as much as I should. Instead, I've been spending most of my time in the corner, wringing my hands nervously.
But I've had this story on the back burner, and I'd like to share it with you as a cautionary tale. I'd like to title it "How Watching Forensic Files and Assuming Every Stranger is a Criminal Can Save Your Life."
First, it may not come across often, but I am a nervous, jittery person. When I was 8, I was staying at my Grandmother's house, watching "Pinwheel" on Nickelodeon with my 5 year old brother. Grandma and Grandpa were off somewhere, but my parents were there watching us. When the show was over, I called out for them. No answer. I ran in every room in the small house, shouting for them, and no answer.
I grabbed my brother's arm, dragged him to the house next door, and tearfully informed the neighbor that we had been abandoned and he would have to take care of us for the rest of our lives.
Good thing the neighbor had been warned that I was insane, and I guess when my mom got out of the shower and finished her conversation with my dad who was talking to her in there, he returned us to our parents' loving arms.
Or there was the time I watched a Forensic Files marathon and was washing some dishes at night, when I noticed our back gate opening up. Without missing a beat, I grabbed a steak knife and assumed a ninja stance on the opposite side of my door. Luckily, my landlord who was taking out the trash through the back entrance didn't happen to look in the glass door to see me ready to ninja stab him, because I don't think you can get your deposit back after things like that.
But, no, this story is about a little naiveté mixed with emotional ninja stances. I had lived here in LA for six months, and looking back, I should have known that filling your car up at midnight in Pittsburgh is a little different than doing the same at midnight in Los Angeles.
I needed gas, and I was returning to the Valley from an evening with Melissa late at night. I pulled into a gas station which was right across the street from another gas station, because that's how things are in the Valley. It was empty, and it was one of those where the tiny walk-in part of the gas station closes after dark, and you have to pay the teller through a plexiglas drawer. That possibly should have been my first hint.
But I was paying with credit card, so I didn't notice. I did, however, notice as I was pumping that a lone man was walking towards me from the gas station across the street. I hadn't noticed where he was coming from and there was no one else at my current gas station, but he had the look of a person on a mission.
Actually, at the time, I noticed that he had the look of a person who wanted to talk to me, which I am usually right about in diagnosing strangers, and no amount of repeating "please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me" will stop them from their beeline towards me. Just file that under "Why you should never wear a red shirt in a Target or a blue shirt in a Best Buy." No, I cannot help you!
Anyway, he circled around the back of my car, and I let out a sigh of relief. Only to see him complete the circle and appear in the front of my car.
"Pennsylvania, eh?" He had a thick New York accent and was looking at my car's plates. "I miss the east coast. Did you move here, or are you just visiting?"
Yeah, buddy, I frequently put 2,000 miles on my car for "just a visit." Actually, I still live in Pittsburgh, but I work here. The whole five-day commute is a bitch!
He was dressed nice enough, so I didn't think he was homeless. I just assumed he was a lonely, chatty, weird guy, so I chuckled, told him that I lived here, and pretended that the gas price ticker on the pump was REALLY interesting.
"Hey, I was wondering if you could help me out." Here we go. He told me that he was really embarrassed, but he had a flat tire. He said he worked for SKG DreamWorks, and he couldn't believe he was in this mess. He flashed me a bunch of business cards from towing companies and said most of them were closed.
"Oh, I can give my landlords a call. They probably know some good ones around here." It was only after the fact that I realized he sort of flinched when I said this.
"No, no, I found one, but they don't accept credit cards, and I don't have any cash. They only charge $32, and this is so embarrassing, but I was wondering if you could lend it to me." He laughed selflessly and couldn't believe his misfortune. He kept telling me that he would pay me back the next day and I could keep his sport coat if I wanted as collateral. He said everyone at his office was really going to make fun of him.
This kind of sounds ridiculous reading over it, but he seemed like a really nice, joking guy caught in a bind.
I wasn't buying it. I felt bad for immediately being suspicious, and imagined what I would do in a situation where I couldn't call anyone, but really needed the kindness of a stranger. In fact, I HAD been in that situation. Before I had a cellphone, I dropped my friend TOM off at the airport and told him to remember to pay for my parking before he boarded because I left my wallet at the dorm. Of course, he DIDN'T, and I actually had to panhandle to be let out of short-term parking. It was the most embarrassing thing I've ever done, and I think the guy who helped me out was pretty sure I was going to stab him.
Will our hero pay the New Yorker off? Will they become lifelong friends? Will our hero be stabbed, and is actually ghostwriting this? Haha! Well, our hero has a doctor's appointment, so tune in tomorrow. Same bat website!
Well, I *was* defiantly waiting to post until SOMEONE on the internet responded to my totally answerable questions in the previous post. I mean, if this moron can mommyblog about her kid's damn shoes for three sentences and get 10 comments, surely you can understand how I thought more highly of you, my good readers.
But I can hold my passive aggressive anger in no longer.
And now, boys and girls, it's time for UNPOPULAR MOVIE OPINION, brought to you by Lauren! Don't read ahead if you haven't seen it or whatever because THAR BE SPOILIN' AHEAD.
I thought 300 was fucking ridiculous. I'm torn, though. I swore that I loved "Sin City" because it was so pretty despite having virtually no plot and laughable dialogue. 300 was pretty. Don't get me wrong. Yay Frank Miller. Yay zombie director. I just...
Okay, first I just have to get this out. There's a scene where Mr. Hunchback visits Mr. Homosexual Persian Man to Judas it up. The scene starts off with an animatronic goat just hanging out. No one else in the theater reacted or seemed to mind. The goat is never mentioned or in the scene again. I can't just pretend the goat wasn't there.
There is also a scene where a man rides a pimped out rhinoceros into battle.
Much to my movie partner Melissa's dismay, I burst out in hysterical laughter during these two scenes, which pretty much both sum up the movie for me.
My overall reaction to the entire movie was that it took itself WAY too seriously, but then got lighthearted at the wrong times.
Every line was delivered as if it should have appeared in the trailer. They should have just started every line of dialogue with "IN A WORLD..."
IN A WORLD WHERE TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL, AN ANIMATRONIC GOAT RIDES A RHINOCEROS INTO BATTLE!
Then there were other times where the writers decided to try their hand at comedy. The scenes that stick out in my mind are when Leonidas is walking all over the dead Persians and eating an apple. For some reason, all the soccer moms in the theater thought this was high-larious. Get it? He's eating an apple amongst the blood and gore! Man, did Sacha Baron Cohen watch this movie when he wrote that joke about the SUIT NOT BEING BLACK?! Now, that's comedy!
They use this joke a few times -- acting like the carnage around them is actually daisies at a Sunday picnic, but to me, it really ruined the flow and the feel of the movie. I felt like during some melee swordfight, Leonidas was going to tell his opponent breathing in his face that he needed a breath mint.
It made me think back to my favorite scene in "Braveheart" where Stephen of Ireland tells William Wallace that God's pretty sure he's fucked. I wonder why it worked so well there and not in 300? I don't know. It just seems like...they stayed in period character more in Braveheart?
There are many small things that annoyed me. The necklace that held absolutely no sentimental value other than having a sad face when passing it back and forth. The bad guy that looked like Sloth from "Goonies" who had swords for arms. The fact that Mr. Homosexual Persian Man looked like Jaye Davidson (of "Stargate" and "Crying Game" fame) and sounded like James Earl Jones through Witness Protection Voice Altering Software. The use of an electric guitar in the soundtrack of the rhinoceros scene which sucked in "A Knight's Tale" and it sucked here. And finally, the following inner monologue I had with myself:
10-minutes-into-film Lauren: Wait, if they're fighting the great epic battle now, and this movie is about this epic battle...is the rest of the movie just more CGI fighting?
2-hours-into-film Lauren: Ah, I see. Yes.
I guess I can understand why so many people liked it. Because so many people are boys. No, I even enjoyed the fighting, and I could appreciate the special effects. I don't know. As I told Melissa, after each ridiculous epic line was spoken as if it were serious, I kept expecting Ashton Kutcher to hop out and tell us that of course this wasn't really the movie and we should have seen our faces.
I will say this. Ladies, thanks to this movie, you have no more need to watch those lame low-budget pornos with no plot. "300" is a very high-budget porno with no plot. SPARTANS! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS! AND YOUR CLOTHING! SLOWLY.
NO, NO, KEEP THE RED CAPE.
I've stumbled upon another Internet quandary somewhat new to society.
I know a lot of...younger kids. I teach and work at a summer theater camp that has students from 2nd grade to 12th. And the school it's held at is within a close-knit community. I went to the same school for 12 years, which was slightly neat, unless you're Drew Leety and you cried once in 2nd grade during a thunderstorm and by the time you were a senior, you still couldn't live it down. I'm sorry you Googled yourself, Drew, and found out that I retained this tidbit of information that occurred in 1988. I didn't have it much better. I was the girl who told the 5th grade art teacher that I was not allowed to watch rated-R movies, thus depriving the rest of the class the wonder that was "Running Man," starring my state's governor.
My brother also went to the school, and my mom still remains an active member of various activities there. So it's really like a 1950s town where I can stroll into the pharmacy and ask ol' Doc Jenkerson how the twins are doing, lob a shiny apple to elderly Mrs. Wetherbee, and tip my cap to the youngsters playing hopscotch outside the local soda jerkery.
So imagine my surprise when, while absentmindedly clicking various myspace links, I stumbled upon a girl I used to babysit. I hovered over the link to add her as a friend, and then I hesitated.
Maybe she doesn't remember me. I don't know the names of any of my old babysitters. Would I *want* my old babysitters friending me and coming to my site? I feel like we would then both be limited in potential future postings.
A few of my campers delight finding me on myspace and facebook, because clearly I should be like most adults in the 1950s-like town we grew up in that refer to the entire internet as "AOL," think e-mailing and IMing are the same thing, and use the internet solely as a way to circulate forwards about angels to everyone they've ever met.
Then...some of them forget that I can view their global postings and bulletins about drunken escapades, smokin' in the boys' room, and/or various images that would make the Girls Gone Wild producers blush. I don't judge them any more than I judge some of my friends who do the same types of debauchery, but there's a line between us. Isn't there? I'm supposed to be a figure for them -- authority, character development, anything. Aren't I? I knew their mothers when they were pregnant with them!
So I ask you, dear readers. Am I right in thinking that only bad things could come from friending someone much younger than me for the purpose of staying in touch? Will I just be embarrassing myself? Setting up for future disaster on either of our parts because our pasts are so connected?
And, yes, let's drop our pretenses for a moment and allow me to admit that I do enjoy using these social networking sites as a method of procrastinating. There's only so many times I can refresh my email.
I guess I just don't know how it's done nowadays. My friend Scott is a teacher, and I believe his students have access to his livejournal. Then again, Scott is not the type of person who would ever do the kind of muckraking that's done here on the HBM. He's like a Disney movie -- enjoyable and funny to both children and adults without sacrificing any humor by not being able to swear or talk about porn.
And, if any of you crazy high school kids read this blog, do your teachers have websites? Would you respect them less or more if they did? I know they would have to censor themselves, just because that's the way things go. Can't have Mr. McLanahan blogging about what a douche the principal is, now can we?
There are some things I need to get clear here, else we have more confusion and missed appointments and all sorts of problems in our society.
Here are some errors I've come across recently, and it is appalling to me that these things have not been addressed enough to clarify their actual use. I am here to teach you the way.
This/Next
I actually think I am in the minority here, but since I try to base my life in semantics, I'll be the bigger person here by saying that I am right and everyone else is wrong. About everything.
Today is Wednesday. If I tell my friend I am going to meet her "next Friday," what would you think I was talking about? 2 days from now or 9 days from now? For me, I would be talking about 2 days from now, because I said "next," meaning "the next one that is going to happen."
"But then why is there a 'this Friday' and a 'next Friday' if they don't mean different things?" they all ask me. Then I mutter something about taking it up with the Romans and wander off. I don't even know if it was them, but I like to blame a lot of baseless things on ancient Holy Empires.
Justin says there's maybe a one-day buffer. Meaning that since it's Wednesday now, if I were to make arrangements for the following day, I would just say "tomorrow" and not "next Thursday," and I would only say "next Thursday" in that case if I meant 8 days from then. I suppose I can agree with that.
My friend Kerjack, although he does say "next Friday" meaning a week from the literal next Friday, agreed that if you're driving and someone tells you to take the "next left," they are not talking about "two left turns from now."
Which is what I say to circumvent confusion between "this" and "next" -- "two Fridays from now." Not as short as one word, but to the point.
Midnight
This is a more recent pet peeve, but when I discovered the potential for confusion, I was surprised I hadn't messed up more things in life.
When most people say "midnight Wednesday," you assume they mean the 12:00 AM that occurs after 11:59 PM on Wednesday. Wrong. It happened 24 hours before that.
Now, believe me. I hate people who, if I say "goodnight" to them at 1:00 AM, they say, "You mean 'good MORNING!'" and then guffaw themselves all the way into town. But this is the literal meaning of midnight. It doesn't start at 12:01. My computer clock rolls over to the next day after 11:59:59. We don't count down to midnight of December 31st for New Years. We count down to midnight, January 1st.
This is very confusing, and I would appreciate if everyone would stop it.
Forward slash
I think someone told all corporations that were making the leap into the Dot Com world that they would sound smarter if they said "forward slash."
There was a happy time when all / was referred to as "slash."
\ was used for DOS and some random other stuff. So, yeah, to normal people -- NEVER. And don't tell me Explorer unless you're going to try and tell me you type out C:\Documents and Settings\PornMaster2007\Start Menu\Programs\RandomPornGenerator\
HotPorn\ParisHilton+PerezHilton_One_night_in_Paris_and_Perez instead of just clicking your Desktop shortcut, because I will call shenanigans on you right now.
However, since all TV ads are now informing me to visit cbs.com "forward slash" SomeLameShow, I get all confused over which one I should actually use.
So this is technically the correct usage, but let's just keep things simple, okay? Just say "slash." If you want to sound smart, say "Hyper text transfer protocol, colon, forward slash, forward slash, www, dot..." and by the time you get to "cbs," all your viewers will have stabbed themselves in the eye with their remotes, but at least you'll sound smart.
Niggardly
Niggardly is an adjective meaning "stingy." It has NOTHING to do with race or being racist. It comes from the Norse verb "nigla" meaning "to fuss over small matters." Yes, I just learned that from wikipedia. What I already knew about the word, however, is that a White House aide was once fired for using the word to describe an African American mayor's plan for the budget. Because it was stingy.
He was re-hired two weeks later when everyone in government admitted they had never heard of this thing called a dictionary, but they were willing to believe that it existed.
Now, I'll admit that it isn't really a pretty word, and, no, I would probably never use it, but it makes me sad as a grammarian that a word has to become extinct because of a social stigma. Kind of like how they had to change the lyrics of the West Side Story song from "pretty and witty and gay/and I pity any girl who isn't me today" to "pretty and witty and bright/and I pity any girl who isn't me tonight." Why can't we all be gay and niggardly, by which I mean happy and overly-financially responsible?
Yeah, that's probably not gonna catch on.
Okay, last one. I promise.
A few months ago, I wrote this about a company who was trying (and failed) to screw me out of a rebate for their product.
This company was ReplayTV, and I will rue the day I learned of their name. When I got a TiVo for Christmas, I had to return it because of its inability to do its weekly updates via internet instead of landline, which I did not have. I think it had the capability in theory, but it would have required be buying all sorts of extra equipment and adapters, and it was just more trouble than it was worth.
Around this time, I was also hearing stories of people whose TiVos were forcing ads on them during the commercial breaks they were skipping. I heard some other ominous Big Brother story, maybe something about deleting allegedly protected shows, but the more I think about that, it sounds like a few isolated incidents of hardware malfunction.
Which brings us to our topic! Hardware malfunction!
Justin heard about ReplayTV from TechTV, because words with TV at the end of them like to stick together. They did a compare/contrast, and not only was the Replay far superior, but it was also kind of the Linux to TiVo's Windows in that Replay was a little more customizable and had cooler features if you only had the know-how.
Also, Replay had the choice that TiVo USED to offer before they realized they would be losing money, which was "pay $12 month-per-month for service forever, or pay a one-time fee of $300." Betting on the fact that I would own my ReplayTV longer than 2 years, I went for the flat fee, since after that, it would have been paid for. I lost that bet.
My Replay worked great for a year and a half. I loved its interface, and it's more user-friendly than my current Dish Network. I don't have too much experience with TiVo besides fucking around with it when I'm at Melissa's house and she's fallen asleep within 5 minutes of my being there. I regard TiVo with the same apathy I reserve for my mom's iMac. Yes, it's very colorful and makes funny noises, but how do you actually get it to do something useful?
When I moved to California, Dish Network came with the guest house, and hooking up a ReplayTV on top of Dish Network is like taping a VCR on top of your VCR. So I gave the Replay to my parents as a loaned gift. I told them that if I ever moved out, I would want it back, but they could use it until then.
Then their problems started. The device would frequently "skip" like a CD, so that if they ever came home expecting a show to have recorded, they could turn on the television and see one second of broadcast being looped infinitely, the rest of the show long lost. When it started happening too often to even use the device, they called support and had them walk through a system restart.
My mom was upset with this because she would lose all her recorded shows that she hadn't gotten to see, but there were too many to watch, and, you know, they were Mom shows like interior decorating with Christopher Lowell and "How to Cook Things For Your Awesome Daughter."
Well, the system restart did nothing, as the skipping restarted almost immediately. I was under the impression that by paying the $300 flat fee, I had guaranteed myself a Lifetime Warranty, so my mom called customer support again to get a new machine.
And here we learn a few things. First, the customer service rep informs my mom that the "Lifetime Warranty" only protects our purchase for the life of the product. Meaning, the first time something goes wrong, it's out of warranty. "So what is an example of something that would fall under the Lifetime Warranty?" The lady said she wasn't sure, but we could send in the box for repair, pay in advance, and if they couldn't fix it, we would be refunded half the price of the REPAIR fee only.
Second, the lady says they no longer sell this product, which already spells something shady, but they do sell a new DVR that works through your PC (IBM only). When I went to the site to check this out, it looked like they still offered my ReplayTV, but upon closer inspection, I don't think they actually sell it. They just offer support for it.
But like I said, my mom doesn't have a PC next to her television, or anywhere in the house, and I don't think anyone would actually have that set-up. So to use the DVR, you have to go order it on your computer, then watch it on TV? Yeah, that's MUCH easier than using a remote. Maybe next time I go out to a restaurant, I'll order my food from my laptop so I don't have to be bothered with the convenience of a waitress.
Oh, and even if my mom could get the PC version, my one-time flat fee would no longer apply, and she would have to switch to its month-to-month service.
So we're now awaiting ReplayTV to send my mom the hopefully repaired box back, and maybe it will work fine and all this headache will be for naught.
And when I went to the ReplayTV site a few minutes ago to research it, I actually really missed it. It really is a great and user-friendly product when it works and you don't have to talk to anyone who works with the company. I miss some of the features that it has that no other DVR has, but I guess you have to look at the whole package of a company when determining which product to go with.
I've been keeping this entry all pent up in my head, because I would rather be funny than complain, and I fear that if I get started on the DMV, I'll just start stabbing my computer instead of typing on it.
But I've been reading a lot of Consumer blogs lately, and it's gotten me all fired up.
I drove to California in August '05 and, by the miracle of craigslist, spent my first night in the guest house I'm currently typing from. I had given myself a few weeks off of work, even though I already had a job lined up out here, because I knew there was a lot of crap I had to do.
Namely, get a cat.
I knew I had to get my CA license and plates and registration and all that within the ridiculous time limit of 20 days, even though I've gone for vacations in states for longer than that. Honestly, it just stressed me out. I even went to the DMV a couple times, and shockingly never had the right paperwork.
The first time, I didn't have my passport. The second time, I didn't have my car's bill of sale, which I still don't entirely know what it is. Well, my job started, and like most other places I actually need to go to, the DMV is only open between the hours of 10:00 AM and 10:15 AM, so the people who go to work, arguably the only people who NEED cars, can never actually get to the DMV.
So, I put it off. It was too much to plan for, and every teller seemed to inform me that I needed a different piece of made-up paperwork.
I joked with my friends that I hoped I wouldn't get pulled over. Actually, I had (stupidly) paid for my yearly Pennsylvania registration right before I left the state, and I didn't want to be out 30 bucks. So I had paid the government my fees, just in the wrong state. I asked my friends what THEY did when they moved here, and every single one of them had just traded in their car for a new one and the problem solved itself. Well, Melissa had her own sneaky way of loopholing the law, as most daughters of policemen do.
I paid off my car almost a year after I moved here, so I now had the title, which replaced the mysterious bill of sale I needed. This was also around the time that my Pennsylvania registration was about to expire, so it was time to actually grin and bear my responsibility.
I studied for my test and fixed up my hair so I would look good in my picture. I brought every single piece of information on myself I owned. Passed the test, got my license...but there was a snag when I went to get my registration and plates.
Well, first I paid a $500 fine for being a year late with my registration, which I begrudgingly paid, since it was my own damn fault.
Here's where the weird part comes in. And apparently I'm the only one in America who has ever done this, because NO DMV EMPLOYEE in Pennsylvania or California knew what to do with me.
When I bought my car, my dad co-signed the loan so I would get a lower rate on his awesome credit. It was always understood, though, that I would be fully responsible for it. I paid the bank directly in my own name with my own checks. Co-sign. Implies two people, to the normal human, right?
So I guess they only put my dad's name on the title. Why they then mailed it to me, at my correct address in California, I will never know, but the DMV wouldn't accept it. The first teller I went to informed me to -- IN PEN -- simply sign my name on the back.
Mark this as the first time the DMV asked me to lie.
Supervisor comes over, sees the mistake, and says the title is no longer valid because there is a mistake in pen on it. She claims that my Dad needed to sign that line, and I needed to sign the line under it saying that he was turning it over to me.
Fast forward 6 to 8 weeks later where I mail the title back to Pennsylvania, they order a new one, and my dad has to now sign it in front of a notary, and send it back.
I return to the DMV a broken woman. I just wanted this to be over with and forgotten. Oh, but guess what! My smog test that I had paid 50 bucks for the last time was only valid for 30 days! Since it took 6 to 8 weeks to get my title back, the woman told me I needed another one.
"Because of a mistake your employee made?"
"Yes."
Then I just put my head down on the counter. I was too weary to turn on "Anger With Customer Service Lauren." I mumbled, "Whatever." And then she tried to get me to pay the $500 fine again. I handed her all the papers I had saying that I'd already paid it, but to no avail, until a new magical supervisor typed in a secret code and suddenly I didn't have to pay anymore.
Then the supervisor handed me a sheet to sign. It said that I had received the car as a gift.
Me: But I didn't.
Her: Yes, but you should just put it down, because none of our other forms apply to you.
Mark this as the second time the DMV asked me to lie.
Her: When did you come to America?
Me: What?
Her: When did you get here?
Me: Um...1980?
Her: To California.
I told her the date, as I marveled at yet another true stereotype about my prominently Mexican town.
Her: Well, what date were you first here with the car and the title in your name?
Me: I don't know. It came a couple days ago in the mail. But I've been in California for a year.
Her: Well, this sheet wants to know when you got the car as a gift.
Me: But remember it was never a gift, and I got the car in '03, 2 years before I even moved here.
Her: Well, according to this paper, you got the car in '07. Just the other day, in fact.
DMV lie number 3.
So tell me this...if I didn't own the car until now, why did I have to pay the $500 fine for living here with "my" car? If I got the car as a gift, shouldn't my dad have a $20,000 hole in his wallet? Why were my title, all my bank confirmation letters, and all my registration forms all sent to me, if I didn't own the car?
I write this as a cautionary tale. Don't ever leave your house or buy anything.
Or trust government officials.
WE DON'T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL, MAN!
