Gee Whiz, I Love Christmas

I have to say that Die Hard is probably my favorite Christmas movie. That's not really the point of this post, as this post really has no point; I'm just at my sister's place right now, watching my nephew make a movie with his Spider-Man camera, a film which involves Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus being flung together at high speeds by his hands. It's not exactly Harryhausen, but what's a kid gonna do? He's now talking to me about making a matte painting of a building, although he has no idea what a matte is, and he's going to be using crayons, but the concept is there.

I might add that Christmas dinner at my sister's place was pizza. I hate pizza.

I got boots for Christmas; boots that are about a size or a size and a half too small. That is what I got, in its entirety. That's not entirely true, since I bought a GeForce FX 5500 yesterday, but then checked the specs out on the internet prior to opening it, and finding out that the card is a piece of garbage, which will be going back to its point of origin tomorrow. I'm considering picking up a 6800 next week, which ought to take me through for a while, at least until I move up to getting a PCI-X chipset.

World of Warcraft has taken over the non-work part of my life. I'm playing on my friend's account, since I don't have broadband, and I lack any desire to download patches of thirty-plus megs in size, but I've managed to play for about seventy-five hours in the last several weeks, and have gotten my Troll Shaman up to level 25, complete with over 150 points in Leatherworking, which makes me just short of being able to make those Night Elves the gimp-suits they've been wanting so badly.

In any case, that was my Christmas, which rated about on par with my birthday for being a giant, steaming load of crap. Pity the restaurants aren't even open for me to go get something to eat.

AIM: therbmcc71

Jaws 2 is NOT a Classic

Jaws 2 is on AMC right now, the mere fact of which just baffles the shit out of me. After all, the name of the station is an acronym for "American Movie Classics," and we all know that the word classic and the film Jaws 2 cannot be used in the same sentence together, unless you're talking about how very non-classic the film happens to be. This is the same station that was, just a couple of hours ago, running Jaws: The Revenge; the film that caused Michael Caine to miss out on accepting his Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters.

Anyway. World of Warcraft is down right now, or at least the login servers are fucked up. Fubar (see sidebar) is running slower than Sammy Sosa on a muddy basepath, and I'm got bored with the otherwise spectacular remake of Sid Meier's Pirates! I'm really not that excited about the game; the exclamation point is part of the title.

The link about the ever-expanding product lines at Tarzhay in the previous post originally pointed to an item without description that was merely titled "Marijuana," and cost something like thirty-five dollars. Not surprisingly, the company either moved the product or simply took it off out of the catalog. Personally, I would have started bundling it with Doritos and Twinkies, but the company doesn't listen to me.

Last night I bought I, Robot on DVD, and recommend the movie to just about everyone. Unfortunately, I fell asleep about twenty minutes into watching the DVD, and haven't yet had a chance to get around to doing so. It's lean on extras, though, which pisses me off. The only trailer on the disc isn't even for I, Robot; it's for Arrested Development. Now, I can understand how Fox wants to get behind this series, because it's the smartest comedy they've got, but it's just insulting to include a trailer for a fucking television show and not include the trailer for the movie I'm watching. Bastards.

We've got two links of the day today; one I'm posting because I just thought of it and still think it's funny every time I watch it, and the other was sent to me courtesy of Fubar's jimthej00.

• Mack Daddy Mario 3 - This is a great Flash animation that's a couple of years old, but never gets tired. Broadband connection is recommended, as it is with most things these days.
• New Signature-Model iPods - In response to U2's well-received signature iPod, many other musical artists have jumped in with Apple and are now offering their own signature models of iPod. Now that I think about it, I think that the Tarzhay marijuana from the last post should have been bundled with Snoop Dogg's iPod.

Well, that's all. It's time to see if the World of Warcraft login servers are back up and running. If not, then I'm just going to have to hit ebaumsworld and look at stupid videos there for a while.


AIM: therbmcc71

Casualties of War

I've been single again since Thanksgiving day, and I've been getting through it with the assistance of Tarzhay, which had me working the opening shift on Black Friday, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the seventh season of which I bought at Tarzhay for the bargain-basement deal of $17.77. I get through breakups by not paying retail.

In any case, I've been jumping all over the season, rather than watching it from beginning to end, as I normally do. With the third season, I tore through all twenty-two episodes in a single day; not surprising since Eliza Dushku was in half of it, and I really enjoyed the writing and performance of the Mayor character. In this case, though, I watched the last episode first, simply because it's a bad-ass episode, and it ends the series on a much more upbeat note than Angel ended. In fact, with regard to Angel, the only highlight of the last episode was when Spike actually finished a poem he'd been working on for over a hundred years, and then proceeded to present that poem to an audience of... well, it was just very interesting.

I've also been playing a fuck-ton (my word) of World of Warcraft over the last couple of days, and I'm going over to my friend's house shortly to start playing again. It's terribly addictive, though I take precious little enjoyment in doing quests and grinding up the levels. However, what keeps me playing is the fact that I'm determined to be the Wal-Mart of leatherworking. No, that doesn't mean I'm going to employ illegal Razormane workers for my sweatshop; I'm just offering mediocre products at bargain-basement prices, and making good money by turning over volume and gaining a bit of a dedicated clientele.

And next Saturday is my birthday. I told my human-resources person that I couldn't work after 6:00 on Saturday night, so she -in her infinite wisdom- scheduled me from six to close. While I'm on the subject of work, today's link of the day is an example of Tarzhay's ever more diverse product line. I think I'm going to have to point my H.R. person to that page and go, "Becky, what the fuck is going on, here; and why don't we have this in stock at our store?"

But I digress. My birthday's this weekend, and so I think that I'm going to buy myself something. The only thing that I've absolutely nailed down is the soundtrack to Reality Bites, since I really wanted to listen to it last night while I was ripping the soundtrack to Singles. For some reason, Paul Westerberg just reminded me of the Reality Bites soundtrack, and so now I want it. Beyond that, I'm not sure whether I want to get the Star Wars trilogy, the Nirvana box-set, the new Metroid game, Spider-Man 2 (either the DVD or the Xbox game) ... the list goes on. Ooh, I just remembered that I ought to take a trip out to the comic-book store and pick up a copy of... well, I've got a bunch of stuff to catch up on.

Anyway. I'm going out to play some World of Warcraft now. I'll update more often from now on, since it's pretty much impossible for me to update less often, unless you count my election-day political rampages as a sign of posting more often.

AIM: therbmcc71

NEWS ITEM: President to Order Bombing of the Rest of New Jersey

An F-16 fighter jet belonging to the Air National Guard fired twenty-five rounds at Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School on Wednesday night, marking the beginning of President Bush's latest military operation, which seeks to destroy the states that comprised the 252 electoral votes won by Senator John Kerry in Tuesday's election. The White House is not commenting on where President Bush was on Wednesday night, but they neither confirmed nor denied this reporter's question that perhaps he was finally fulfilling the obligation to his country that he signed up for during the war in Vietnam.

Let's look at the circumstantial evidence:

• We know that President Bush has a flight-suit, which he wore on the U.S.S. Lincoln on May 2, 2003, when he declared an end to major combat in Iraq.
• We're not sure, but we think that the President never finished his tour of duty with the Alabama Air National Guard, as no proof has yet surfaced of his attendance in such from the period of May, 1972 to October, 1973. That said, we're pretty sure he knows how to fly a plane.
• New Jersey's electoral votes will go to Senator Kerry when the votes are officially tabulated. President Bush lost by a seven-percent margin to Senator Kerry in New Jersey, coming in only forty-five points over Ralph Nader. Humbling, I'm sure; possibly enough to drive the most powerful man in the world to hop in an airplane and personally begin furthering his agenda ahead of schedule.
  
• Many have criticized the Bush administration's underfunding of the "No Child Left Behind" program, though (White House Press Secretary) Scott McClellan remarked that, "it would be impossible to underfund the program if and when there were no schools left."
• President Bush, according to CNN exit-polls, fared six percent better than Senator Kerry amongst voters with no college degree. In order to keep the kids from attending college, the Bush administration is expected to order the complete and utter destruction of all K-12 educational institutions within the next week. One anonymous Pentagon official stated that, "This operation will make Shock & Awe look like a couple of kids playing with firecrackers."

It is now more likely than not that the recounting in Iowa and New Mexico will be halted, with the numbers being doctored to show overwhelming support of the President and his war on Kerry's states. Live from a bunker near Wrigley Field, this is Umgawa signing off.

EDIT: Finally, your link of the day, sent to me by Fubar's own jimthej00: Canada 2.0

AIM: therbmcc71

From the Quotable Quotes Department

Upon receiving John Kerry's phone call, which conceded victory to George Bush, he pledged to pursue his agenda on taxes and Iraq while seeking "the broad support of all Americans."

Bill Clinton, from his office in Harlem, is still seeking the American support of all broads.

Thank you very much, I'll be here all week. Be sure to try the veal.

AIM: therbmcc71

At Least the Supreme Court Isn't Responsible This Time

Well, from the counts coming out of Ohio, it's looking like the people of the United States have officially (and for the first time) elected George W. Bush to the office of President of the United States. The up-side to all of this is the fact that in four more years, provided Dubya hasn't managed to start a nuclear war and kill us all, there will be no one to blame but Republicans for any and all of the ills that will befall the nation.

In lighter news, Alan Keyes lost the Senate race by about the predicted forty-plus percent landslide, making Barack Obama only the third black United States Senator since Reconstruction. I considered noting that Illinois also sent Carol Moseley-Braun to the Senate, but then I remembered that I like her about as much as I like the outgoing Senator, Peter Fitzgerald.

So, I've been following things since The Daily Show ended a few hours back over at cnn.com, and I have to say that the most fascinating thing has to be the exit-polling. For example, fifteen percent of people polled said that Iraq was their biggest concern, and three-quarters of them voted for Kerry. Twenty percent said that the economy and jobs were their concern, and those people also overwhelmingly voted for Kerry. In the most bizarre statistic I've seen, twenty-one percent of people said that moral values, of all things, were their primary concern, and they overwhelmingly voted for the punk-ass chump, George W. Bush.

In the game of "lesser of two evils," twenty-six percent of people said that they were not necessarily voting for their own candidate, but against his opponent.

Okay, here's a funny statistic: In the question, "Did Bush attack unfairly?" (which is in regard to political advertisements and such), sixty-one percent of people said yes, of which a third of them still voted for Bush. Mathematically, this breaks down to twenty percent of the American populace, and they love their dirty tricks. This explains the success of the television show Survivor.

The thirty-five percent of people polled who were totally against same-sex unions of any sort (marriage, civil union or otherwise) voted overwhelmingly in favor of everyone's favorite National Guard deserter. While we're on the subject of ignorant people, twenty-nine percent of people said their family's financial situation is worse than four years ago, but twenty percent of that number still voted for George Bush, who -due to the 'global economy' we're living in- supports exporting jobs like the Middle-East exports oil.

Four percent of people polled are gay, lesbian or bisexual. Twenty percent of them voted for George Bush, who supports their lifestyle like he supports a strong economy. If you missed that jab, I'm saying he doesn't.

African-Americans only made up eleven percent of the voting populace, if this poll has any legitimacy. Even if it doesn't, the margin of error could be as large as five points, and I'd still have to say that not enough is really being done to mobilize the African-American vote (since ninety percent of those polled went for Kerry). At the same time, though, eleven percent of voters were voting for the first time today (and the majority went for Kerry).

When asked what the most important quality of the candidates was, the candidate's intelligence was primary with seven percent of people. Needless to say, Kerry won that contest with ninety-one percent.

I suppose there's a bright side to all of this: We get another four years of Bush-bashing from the likes of The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, and various non-Fox news organizations who just like to report on the train-wrecks of any presidency. As for Fox, well, they're always fun, since their coverage of the opening days of the war in Iraq was like a comedy of errors; I swear, they announced (and retracted) the death of Saddam Hussein a good five times in the opening week.

In closing, I'm going to tell you about a guy who works at my Tarzhay. He's moving to Japan to teach the little Nipponese children there how to speak English. He doesn't speak a lot of the local language, so I imparted upon him one very valuable piece of advice: If you're an American going to a foreign country, be sure you know how to say, "I didn't vote for Bush," in their native tongue. This could save your life.


AIM: therbmcc71