Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Your little hopes and dreams."
¤ Usage: "Poor fellow, his little hopes and dreams have all be smashed."
¤ Origin: Quipped by a whore, or pre-op transgender man, or a sociopath, or some other lowlife who was engaged in a vicious verbal battle with another lowlife guest on the Jerry Springer show
¤ Notes: While the Jerry Springer show is generally pretty lacking in opportunities for intellectual improvement, you do tend to hear some funny jokes, of the personal insult type.  This was one of the best.  One loser was arguing with another loser, and when one said something about how she'd loved her husband, whom the other lowlife had stolen away, lowlife #1 replied, "Bitch, I don't care about your little hopes and dreams!"

You'll find it applicable to almost every situation in life.  It's the "little" that really makes it work, since that just so perfectly and cruelly diminishes whatever claim to importance the other person might previously have had. -- February 20, 2004

eviews week ends a day early today, since I don't have any more written, don't have any burning desire to write more, and am pretty much out of review material anyway. I did Finding Nemo earlier this week on the same day as a longer review or some book or other, so count that one as a bonus that should have gone today.

Instead of more reviews you get random photos with captions.  Ones that have been on my notes page for a week, since it's late and I'm tired and I've been doing other things all night.

What sort of other things?

Not what you'd think, if you read yesterday that I finished downloading the World of Warcraft beta. I didn't install it then, since I didn't have a working 3d card in my PC.  The cheap GeForce 2 I got when I bought this machine just over 2 years ago, died many months back, and was never replaced since I never play any games that require 3d acceleration. D2 looks somewhat better with it, but it's not really necessary, so I just did without.  WoW however does require 3d, so I didn't bother installing it since I knew I'd just get to the system check and fail there.

Conveniently enough, Fry's was opening a new store in a slum hole of a shopping center in Concord on Friday, and Malaya was all hot to trot to check it out.  I wanted to go by there also, since I like home electronics stores, and Fry's is the best of them.  The biggest, the best selection, and the lowest prices. Hard to beat, even with the vast herds of employees, all of whom are tiny Asian women or oafish, shambling guys with mandatory bad buzz cuts and ill-fitting long sleeved white dress shirts.  The fashion disaster that is your average Fry's employee is hard to overstate.  I've been to 4 different Fry's in my lifetime, and don't believe I've ever seen a single male employee there who looked good in his black pants/white dress shirt uniform. And sadly enough, the worst looking guys are the managers, who wear full black suits, adding a blazer to their dress pants.  They're all always small guys floating in huge suits, or fat guys stuffed sausage-like into their cheap shiny black jackets.  The day I see a man working at Fry's who has a tan, a decent hair cut, a shirt that fits him well, and some muscle tone, I'll probably need smelling salts.

Anyway, the new store was opening with great fanfare, and huge expected crowds. We parked way on the other side of the mall and walked past the crappy dollar stores and planters full of dying trees, passing flocks of low-income looking young mothers with an average of about 3 kids each, and came into sight of the Fry's which is located in a horrible spot, way back in the mall, behind the front row of crappy stores, and several miles from a freeway.  It's definitely the worst location for any Fry's on earth, but apparently they were massively bribed by Concord to locate a store in the area, and they must figure as cheaply as they got the land and a new access road and such, it's worth it.

We walked up and beheld the location, solid cars everywhere, cops out directing traffic, and saw the line stretching from the entrance all the way around the side of the store, at least 60 or 70 yards, and winced.  Yes, Fry's are pretty damn popular, but we were there and it was opening day and there were sales galore, so we got in line and hoped it would move along.  And it did; we didn't wait more than 10 minutes or so to get in, and they even had some of their poorly-dressed employees out pouring cups of water for the line-waiters.

We didn't get there until nearly 3pm, which worked out pretty well since we were there before the big after work rush, and the sun had moved across the sky just far enough that there was about 8 feet of shade from the building, right over the line. Half an hour earlier, not to mention all morning, the entire line would have been in direct sunlight, which would have made things less pleasant, even though the temperature has been in the 70s the last couple of days after a solid week of record-breaking 80+ daytime highs.

So we waited, but the line moved quickly and we were soon inside. But not before we got to reflect upon the exterior. It's ugly. Very plain and warehouse-y, just a big light gray cement rectangle squatting in the middle of acres of fresh blacktop with fresh parking spaces painted on it. The other Fry's up here are decorated in interesting fashion, have nice modern interiors, and are all very near major freeways for easy access. The one in San Diego is in an old Incredible Universe store, so it's not much on interesting design, but it's gigantic, has a parking lot like something you'd see at Disney Land, and is about 10 yards from two major freeways.

I don't know exactly why they settled for Concord for this new one, but it's about 10 miles from our condo, compared to 30 miles and 40 miles for the other two in the area, both down south towards Silicon Valley.  I also don't know why this is the first Fry's anywhere near Oakland/SF, and why they put it in a shitty strip mall in a hole like Concord, a location that's over 20 miles and lots of traffic away from the population centers of SF and Oakland.  Nor do I know why there were two Fry's in a hole like Fremont, one of them on the perpetually gridlocked 101, and none any closer to Oakland/SF, where everyone lives.

Those mysteries aside, I'm glad that they put one near where I live, since it's the best place to get computer stuff and home electronics and DVDs and CDs, and I'm sick of settling for higher prices and shitty selection at Best Buy and Circuit City and other inadequate stores.  Plus I had a $50 Fry's store credit left from when I returned the copy of WinXP that wouldn't work on my old tower, months ago, and I got to spend that on a GeForce 4 that was normally $70, marked down to $50 for opening day, and had a $20 mail in rebate on top of that.

Malaya got a couple of CDs and a nifty little mini data storage device that you plug into your USB port and can transfer up to 128MB onto.  Basically a zip disk the size of a keychain. They make them in larger sizes, but the 256MB versions were not on super sale. She paid $29 for the one she got, with a $20 mail in rebate.  Making the keychain sized 1/4 CD-ROM worth of storage cost about the same as an actual keychain, made from a melted down CD-ROM. 

The line for check out was frightening, stretching through the check out area, winding back around, then turning again and S'ing all through the DVD section. It was actually pretty quick though, with all 40 registers open and their usual blinking green lights or red lights (green for ones that are free) and a person at the head of the line keeping an eye on the open ones and directing customers to the next free cashier.  We got through the line in less than 5 minutes, though it took the brand new cashier a few minutes to figure how to properly deduct my store credit from the total bill.

After Fry's, we headed over towards the huge used bookstore at the other end of the strip mall, with a stop at Burlington Coat Factory on the way. And there I got an object lesson in the differences between competently run stores such as Fry's, and slum strip mall holes like Burlington Coat Factory.  We weren't really looking for anything special there, but while browsing we happened upon a display of Champion t-shirts, in all colors and sizes, that were $7.29, or else 4 for $20, with the discount taken at the register.

I picked out four, dark blue, light blue, dark green, and burgundy, and after we browsed around a while longer and Malaya found some new sandals for $6, we got in line. I went first, and in the time it took them to check my stuff out, Malaya bought her shoes, stood around, hugged me, walked outside, came back in, sent a bunch of text messages, hugged me again, and paced some more. The reason for the delay?  My discount wasn't being taken at the register.

First of all, the cashier was very slow and clueless, and took about 30 seconds to scan in the four price tags.  Despite the fact that they were all the same product, just in different colors.  What happened to scanning one and hitting the x4 button?  Then she tells me it's going to be $32 dollars, at which point I obviously mention that they're 4 for $20.  Not $7.29 each. She looks confused, like a dog trying to lick ice cream through plastic wrap, and scans them again, for no apparent reason.  She then asks me if I'm sure, if they're all the same type of shirt (you'd think she'd have noticed at some point while scanning them all in twice), if I got them all from the same display, etc. All while she's scanning them in for the third time, and pressing the total button repeatedly, hoping that the computerized cash register will somehow change tactics and pop up the correct price.

Another cashier wanders by at this point, and she asks her if she sold 4/$20 that morning, and if so how she got it to ring up correctly.  The other woman is perplexed, requires a full explanation, and then says that it just worked for her. She does, fortunately, have the smarts to page the manager to come and help.  Another minute goes by while there are now three cashiers puzzling over this amazing shirt mystery, before the manager shows up. She's got all the same questions as the other 3 women, so I just stand there staring off into space while they wrestle the problem to the ground.

I did suggest at one point that they just enter a $20 sale in and calculate the tax and let me pay that, but my suggestion is met with blank stares.  That would be deviating from the script and store procedure, and is clearly not allowed, despite the fact that what they're doing is clearly not going to work.  The cashier told me that she couldn't do anything to change the prices, as if I was asking for some sort of personal discount, and when the manager finally tries to do it manually, it takes her several tries.  The best she can finally do is to scan them in, for the 5th or 6th time by now, and then punch in a $2.19 discount for each, after which she has to scan her little bar code manager keychain thing to make the computer accept the change.  And she has to do this all four times, individually, since 1) it takes much longer, 2) it's more laborious, 3) the computer wouldn't allow it to be done any other way, or 4) she's too stupid to just override the entire thing and punch in a $20 sale, or else scan all 4 shirts and then subtract whatever amount from the total that would make it add up to $20.

I wasn't watching my watch (not that I have one, just the clock on my cell phone, and it's just an expression anyway) but it had to take them at least 15 minutes to ring up my shirts.  And if the next guy in line had 4 of them and wanted the same advertised price... they'd be back to square one, with no plan other than to hope and pray that the computer would miraculously allow the sales price to work.

It's that sort of lack of common sense and blind, idiot adherence to stupid rules and official policies that drives me insane about businesses. It's like a Dilbert strip come to life, and it's not at all uncommon in the retail world.

Then as I'm trying to pay the woman can't seem to figure out if I'm using an ATM or a credit card, despite the fact that it says, "MasterCard Platinum" on it, and the fact that I've said, "Credit card." twice.  She tells me to swipe the card and I do and a moment later she adds, "Enter your PIN now."

*sigh*

The capper was when they finally managed to sell me the product at the price they had it listed at, I was ready to leave, obviously, and the cashier only then began to pick the price tags off, unclamp the security devices, and fold them up.  I'm standing there, staring blankly, and she goes, "Since you've been so patient let me get you a bag."

What, I wasn't going to get one otherwise, after spending $20 on their shitty merchandise?

Let's compare, shall we?

Burlington Coat Factory: 15 minutes to buy four t-shirts when there's no one in line.

Fry's Electronics: 8 minutes to buy 5 things and trade in a store credit and get a mail in rebate form printed out with a line that had at least 100 people ahead of us.

At least one store was run competently, eh?

The whole Burlington Coat Factory ordeal reminded me of a philosophical conversation I've had with my dad several times. He's often subjected to appalling customer service, either due to sheer Burlington-esque incompetence, or just a lazy or stupid cashier or clerk, and he always gets annoyed and often gets snippy.  Like the cashier will wait until he walks up and then without a word ignore him to count up a bunch of money for a turn in, or to get more change, without ever saying anything about, "I'll be just a minute; sorry for the wait." And when they finish that and start to check his stuff, he'll just stand there and look at them, or gaze around the store, ignoring them and making them wait on him for a bit.

I never do that sort of thing, and I don't think dad does very often either, but it's sure tempting to retaliate in like fashion towards incompetent sales people I encounter.  It's obvious most of them are totally overmatched by even the idiot menial labor they're doing, so you know fucking with them would be child's play. But why?  What's the point?

The key difference between dad and myself is that he is surprised and upset by poor service, while I basically expect it, and only in cases of astonishing idiocy, Burlington-esque displays of it, do I even bat an eye.

The reason, I think, is that he hasn't worked in the service sector since he was a teenager, and I was doing it as recently as last July, at the stadium in San Diego. And I am therefore quite familar with the gross incompetence and indifference that the majority of minimum-wage workers feel towards their jobs and their employers.  And honestly, incompetence and indifference are the best you can hope for; most employees are actively hostile and resentful, and will not only fuck things up since they're stupid and they don't care; they'll fuck things up or rip off customers or break/steal company property out of pure spite and malice and disgust for their jobs, themselves, and their lives.

I wouldn't say it's "most" employees, but it's at least a third or more, and I was working at the stadium, in a relatively fun job, that due to being unionized paid a lot better than minimum wage, and was just part time.  I can't imagine what it's like in a really shit job with long hours, boring work, and horrible pay.  McDonald's or Wal-Mart or something like that. I'd imagine that the employees are practically mutinous, and that the idiotic bullshit rules that break their spirit and don't allow them any leeway for common sense (such as not being able to just hand enter a price when the computer is fucking up a 4 shirts for $20 deal) or intelligence are what make them so pissed off and bitter about life.  That and the slave wages they earn for their shit jobs in the US these days.

I'm not going to get into a whole sociological discussion, but I've long found it funny that I expect incompetence and don't get upset by it; I'm just resigned to it. While my dad is upset and outraged by it and can't believe how stupid it is, even though he sees it every other time he buys anything, anywhere.  As I've said to dad, I'm not sure which is worse.  That he still expects decent service despite all evidence to the contrary, or that I don't expect it and aren't surprised or dismayed when I don't get it.  Is his naivety and nostalgia sadder than my pessimism and resignation?

Yes, it's a rhetorical question.

I did eventually return home with the new 3d card, and it installed fine and the drivers on the cd-rom worked fine and all was well.  I even installed WoW, and was sort of curious to see what it looked like... but not curious enough to bother. I closed the install window and did other things for some hours, and I've not returned yet, and I don't know if or when I will.  I've read a few FAQs about it, and the readme.txt, and glanced at Worldofwar.net, but it all seems like way too much trouble.

I realize that was the same excuse I had for not bothering with Warcraft 3; that it would be way too much work to learn it, to get good at it, and it would take too much time. And that I didn't have the time to spare for that with writing to do and life to lead. I'm not sure when I came to view playing computer games as a waste of time and a chore, rather than a delight to look forward to, but I haven't downloaded a demo in at least 3 years, and haven't played anything other than Diablo II and a few flash back games of Warcraft 2 in at least 4 four years.

If WoW had come out when I was 15, or 20, or even 25 (maybe) I would have been all over it, for hours and hours a day, and would have had every bit of available info committed to memory long before I ever had the game on my computer.  But now I just don't care.  I don't really like the whole MMORPG concept, since I don't much want to deal with other people when I'm playing, and they're not only unavoidable in an MMORPG, they're essential, since unlike Diablo, you simply can't do the higher level powerful things solo. You have to be in a guild and have a variety of powerful characters involved, and while that's fun for some people, it totally turns off my interest.  I don't want to have my fun be dependent upon other people, or my glory or success divided and shared with them.   I also don't see how there's really any skill involved in playing in a huge party where everyone specializes in some attack or healing or magic, and just does their role and if there are enough of you the gigantic monster will eventually die and drop a relatively-predictable reward. And if you do it for 12 hours a day, you'll eventually reach a very high level.

So while WoW wasn't interesting me on Friday night, I was curious to see how Diablo II would look with the 3d card going.  My display in general was improved and altered; looking brighter and clearer, almost painfully so.  I have a very powerful, bright monitor (Sony Trinitron 21" G500), and my usual brightness settings are very very low, as are my color values.  Otherwise I'm literally squinting at it, and webpages with the dreaded white background are physically painful to view.  (I don't use this lovely light grayish blue for nothing.)  I feel that way about all monitors though, not just this one, and have rather light sensitive eyes; I can't imagine driving in the daytime without dark sunglasses on, while I see other people going along with their faces bare, and not even squinting.

When I finally got around to running the D2 video test.exe late Friday night, it worked fine and I set my display to 3d. And started up D2, and got a scrambled, flashing jumble of colors that could in no way be considered recognizable.  I ran the video test again and reset it to software mode... and it worked fine.  The game looked great when I tried it in 2d, deeper richer colors, but no 3d is possible at all.

And on top of that, Dusty was whining at the bedroom door for the third time in about 10 minutes late Friday night, and when I got pissed and snatched off my headphones and whirled the chair around and leaped up to chase him away from the bedroom with appropriate scoldings, I snagged a foot in the headphones cord and snapped one of the ear pieces off. Which didn't exactly improve my mood towards the yowling feline.

So now I don't have 3d video, or sound. 

¤ This is silly, but the company product logos made me laugh.  C&D letters from various seafood restaurant lawyers are no doubt already on their way.

It's the banner from www.GodHatesShrimp.com, which is a pointless and mildly amusing parody of the infamous and nutty GodHatesFags.com site, which never seems to be online anymore. Fortunately there's a mirror version from their sister site, GodHatesAmerica.com, if you really need to see more insane anti-gay ravings than your normal Internet use exposes you to already.

 

 

¤ In weekend movie news, Dawn of the Dead is looking interesting.  I never gave a thought to it pre-release, since I figured it would just be a disastrously bad horror movie along the lines of House of the Dead, or at best a cheesy mediocrity, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (my review here) or Freddy vs. Jason (my review here).  Both of which I paid for the privilege of seeing during the past year.

However, shocking thought it may be, Dawn of the Dead, a low budget remake of a classic low budget horror film, is getting rave reviews. It's at an astonishing 77% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, and that's out of 86 reviews, so it's a substantial survey of opinions.  Furthermore, most of the positive reviews are glowing, with phrases like "the best horror movie in a decade" being thrown about. Malaya is interested as well, so we'll probably catch that one this weekend, possibly as soon as Saturday afternoon.

In other movie news, the Japanese trailer for Casshern is getting a lot of attention around the geek circles on the Internet.  I've received the link in 2 emails at this site as well as over ICQ, and it's even plugged in Friday's Penny Arcade.  And as you probably know, once something non-game related shows up in the PA news, it's officially gone mainstream.  By definition, owing to PA's something like 150k regular viewers.

As for Casshern; I'm pretty sure that I saw it months ago from a link on AICN or some other geek film site, but there are several foreign, weird, very anime-inspired mostly live action movie trailers floating around now, and I might be confusing this one with Wonderful Days or something like that.  Casshern looks pretty cool, though it's hard to see how so many disparate scenes and settings could be knitted together into a coherent movie. You've got barking military leaders, marches of robots, super-powered humans battling robots, humans in sword fights, and so on, all with very different visual looks, color schemes, and so on.  It's visually glorious, but would it be a decent movie? And does that even matter, if it's visually glorious enough?  (Yes, and a case in point is coming to DVD in two weeks.)

 

Well actually she's still sort of fearful, but it's mild fear seasoned with complete fascination towards the long, slithery, scaly creature.  When he's in the aquarium they're both staring all the time, though Dusty lacks the balls to hop up on top of the mesh screen to get within good sniffing range.  This is probably a good thing, given the relative weights of the two cats.  If Jinxie keeps getting up there as she gets bigger and heavier, I'll probably have to get some sort of wooden or plexiglass cover to put over the screen, just so her weight doesn't stretch it or break through it.

She much prefers being on top to looking through the sides, I assume since she can smell his scaliness all the better from there, even though the view is obstructed and several inches further.

But when he's out of the tank, that's when the magic really begins.  As I'm carrying him around, to wash him or dry him or just let him have some exercise, Jinx is pacing me like a blood hound.  In the way, underfoot, an inch from my heels, all the time trying to sniff at a dangling snake tail, as she's doing here. And if you let her sniff, she never gets tired of sniffing.  You get tired of holding still though, so after a moment you inevitably end up swinging the snake some so his tail bumps into her face and she backs up, still sniffing, but now confused and agitated. It's definitely a sign of weakness to enjoy teasing lower life forms with other even lower life forms, but it sure can be fun.

The funny part is that when I'm holding Snakers in the sink or tub to wash him, Jinx inevitably loses the scent, while retaining some thought of "snake" in her thimble of a brain. So she races into the kitchen where his cage sits, and sniffs at it, and frequently leaps up on top, just like she does 20 times a day, often at full speed.  The problem is that the lid is off while the snake is out. And while Jinx can usually get her balance on the sides of the tank and stop short of falling in... sometimes she can't.

The real problem is that she's realized this isn't a problem, and now happily stands inside the tank and looks around for a while, getting her dirty cat feet all over Snakers' bed. And when Snakers is clean and dry and ready to return to his cage... there's a Pinxie standing in the way.

It makes for cute photos, at least.

Me the day after the Tahoe trip, still in my ski cap, apparently. Actually I wear that one around the house all the time, and outside some times when I'm too lazy to get my hair straight and put in gel and all of that. Malaya likes my hair when it's loose and ungelled and puffy, but it gets in my eyes and I don't like the look or floppy feel of it, I either put gunk in it, or wear a hat. And this hat is both warm and comfy.

The reason for the photo wasn't to show off the hat thought, it was to show off my sunburn.  I had amazing raccoon/goggle eyes from sunburn on the mountain, and by the time of this shot I was peeling nicely, with my upper cheeks an especially a bright red, covered in lovely light flakes of white dying skin.  Unfortunately I couldn't get a shot that showed this clearly.  The overhead light in the bathroom was too harsh and too white, and the flash just glared it out.  So enjoy this shot of me trying to look all white boy gangster, or something, and imagine just where my skin cancer spots will be in 20 years.

I don't think I ever posted this photo before, even though it's some months old. I like it, anyway, and I mostly post shots of Jinx and not of her cumbersome and ponderous friend Dusty.  Here he is sleeping on the kitty blanket my mom sent us/the kids two of for Xmas.  No, it's not the most exciting photograph in the history of feline photography.  But it's typical Dusty, which might go some distance towards explaining why it's usually Jinx in the photos, and not him.

This shot of Jinx is fine at a glance, but with a longer look it becomes creepy. She moved her head just as I took it, hence the blurry faced evil kitty.  Or you can just say it's unusually clear evidence of the demonic heart that beats inside the breast of every feline.

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