Spoiler

Saw this the other day near my apartment. RIP Curtis, indeed. But is this really a fitting memorial for the death of Curtis Manning on 24?

4:20

My brother gave me his old Ipod. I've been against the infrenal machines for years, as I've documented here before. Mostly because they cost so much without the necessary payoff. I've had a 40 gb Creative jukebox for 3 years. It's never crapped out once or needed to have the battery replaced. Try to get the same story from any ipod owner. If it's a mini, forget it.

But here it was, a free 60 gb ipod. How could I turn that down? I decided to give it a shot. I tested it out on my laptop, getting the few tracks I keep on there for my wife . . . Mephistopholes.

Last night, I tried to install itunes on my computer at home. First off, Quicktime is a bitch and infects every fucking thing, but whatever, I'll deal with that later. Then I try to install the ipod but it says I can't because it's already has a library on another computer (my laptop). Plus there are songs that I bought there which I don't have the licenses for on my home computer. Itunes tells me to either cancel copying of those tracks or do a complete reset. I try to reset the thing, as prompted, so that I can start fresh. And it tells me that I have to plug it into the wall in order to complete the reset. Mi hermano never gave me the wall plug, because he thought I didn't need it. So now I have a brick which I can't use.

My Creative doesn't freak out when I plug it into different machines. And I thought Ipods were so useful, part of the Apple Zeitgeist that is busy making peoples lives better while charging a petamillion for it. They are the acerbic hip dude from Waiting, and I'm just the fat funny guy from the Daily Show. I'd rather be the fat funny dude, honestly.

I'm going to try this tonight, http://www.mgtek.com/dopisp/. It's a plugin for WMP that works with ipods. Maybe it will be less stressful than dealing with itunes, i always liked WMP's interface better.

Oh and 420, dude.

Jack Thompson is an asshole

Why is he on FOX News as a "School Shooting Expert"? He is not an expert. He is an attorney who represents victims of teen violence in civil suits against companies like Take Two by using the Videogame Made Them Do It Defense. And loses. He is now linking the shooting in Virginia to videogames somehow, even though there is a mess of evidence that this dude was way fucked up anyway. It's preposterous, and yet he still gets the press. Who's dick is he sucking to get on Fox News? That's the 35 thousand dollar question. Smart money's on Oprah, but that could just be a dream I had.

Check out some of the crazy. You won't be disappointed.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/jack-thompson/

I recently saw a bit on Fox News (it plays non-stop in the cafeteria at work) where the host was talking about a Washington Post article mentioning that the shooter played Counterstrike, a popular FPS, in high school. Kotaku also has a bit about how that point was edited out, probably for two reasons, one being the fact that it was deemed irrelevant and the other being the fact that VIDEOGAMES DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!

Ok, I'm off to go home and play on my Columbine Simulator, er, I mean, my Xbox.

NY weekend

So it's Wednesday and I'm only now writing about what happened on the weekend. I know. I'm the promptest blogger you know, admit it.

On Friday, my wife, Mephistopholes, got a call from our downstairs neighbor. Usually he calls to see if we are having similar problems with the landlord. Like he called a lot this winter because his heat was basically off for the entire month of February, aka the coldest fucking month of the year. The neighbor, I'll call him Jeremy, because that's his name and I'm over the whole anonymous thing I think, travels often and came home one night from Uzbekistan or whatever to find his breath was now visible inside his apartment. Not a good sign. We felt his pain but our heat was fine, that is until last week where our cheap ass Polish landlord (I'm not saying being Polish has anything to do with it, not really) decided to fix the boiler himself instead of calling a repairman. So the problem, which could have been fixed in a day, took 6. Yes, I was without heat for a week. We survived, mostly by snuggling together closely and having lots of sex. That's even what my landlord suggested we do. Fuck like rabbits to heat the apartment. I wish I was kidding about that.

Anyway, my neighbor, Jeremy, called last Friday not about the heat, but to invite us to a movie screening. He works in the movies, I thought he was a visual effects supervisor guy, he has done some awesome movies like Pi, Life Aquatic and a shitload of others. The NYC marathon goes by our house and the two of us usually have a competing brunch parties where our friends come over to eat bacon while 30,000 people run past us. I found out after this years event that Darren Aranofsky, director of Pi and more recently, The Fountain, was at the brunch. I seem to remember him flirting with Mephistopholes. I'll have to kill him. But back to the point, kind of, I basically want to be Jeremy. He actually makes his living making movies. And he makes really cool ones. But at least I can somehow reap the benefits of living above him.

He called on Friday to invite us to a screening of Wes Anderson's newest film. Mephistopheles and I were like, sure. So we go to the Viacom building, 1515 Broadway, home to a little network you might have heard of called Music Television or some such. We are directed to a posh elevator bank, and go up to the Paramount Offices with glass tables and movie posters on the walls from the current releases. Again, it is posh. Up a few steps is the entrance to the cinema they have in the building. At the double doors are standing two men, one is a bookish gentleman with long hair and a blazer, the other is Jeremy. I go to shake hands with my neighbor, at the same moment that I realize the other dude is Wes Anderson himself. I recognize him from the AMEX commercial. I wish I had the wherewithal to at least introduce myself to Mr. Anderson but I think there were some studio big wigs behind me because a split second after I say hi to Jeremy, both he and Wes were locked on the fat balding dude coming up the steps. If I know anything about the movies it's that fat balding men are always studio execs. So I didn't intrude and went to go find a seat.

There weren't any left. Seriously, a private showing, and there were no seats left. Would my tardiness prevent us from receiving this gift from the heavens, this manna? No, some hot female PAs, who are infinitely more happy at their jobs than I am at mine, busted out some chairs and Mephistopheles and I sat in the aisle and watched the first Public Screening of The Darjeeling Limited. That's right, Wes even came out and told us so before it started. They hadn't shown it to anyone yet. No one. We were the first to see the cut film, other than the editors and the director himself. It was a great honor. Oh, and Wes told us that his colleague Jeremy would be talking to us after the screening to gather some feedback. Jeremy is Wes Anderson's colleague now? What the fuck am I doing?

The movie starts and it's fucking great. Just great. The first ten minutes or so is a short film with Jason Schwartzman and Padme (I forget her name). The film ends and credits roll. Then the real film begins with a shot of Bill Murray in the back of an Indian cab. I'm not going to give anything away, but it's a great role for him, I'm so glad Wes used Bill like that. (I'm on first name basis with them now, I went to private screening.) The rest of it stars Owen Wilson, Schwartzman and Anderson newcomer, Adrian Brody. The three of them are brothers who meet in India a year after their father's death to go on a spiritual journey. The train they meet on? The Darjeeling Limited.

After the movie, we were given blank sheets of paper and a golf pencil. I've been to a few of these screenings before, they usually give you a worksheet with specific questions like "Did you think the film needed a better ending? Choose one: Strongly agree, agree, don't give a shit, wish you could shoot yourself." It was weird having a blank slate to say what you thought. But after being a little put off (how do you write comments to one of your idols?) I warmed up to the process. I wrote a whole page of things I liked and didn't like. Mephistopholes started to get pissed that I was taking so long but I didn't care. I was here to write what though so I did. I was proud of it. I even signed my name at the bottom.

Leaving the theater, Wes was nowhere to be seen. My guess is he bugged out after the movie, he probably couldn't bear to see 100 hipsters scribbling down "you suck." Wes's colleague, Jeremy, was the guy who facilitated the passing out of the paper. I met him after and handed in our comments. We chatted for a few moments about the movie. I tried to sound like I knew what I was talking about. In retrospect, I probably sounded like a douche. Character development? Did I actually just say that? But he listened attentively and then bowed out of the convo, saying he had to go and read everyone's comments now.

That was my Friday night. Mephistopholes and I talked about the movie the whole way home on the L train (except for that innocuous conversation with that hip art gallery owner). She told me she saw Jeremy's name in the credits of the movie. He's not a visual effects anything anymore, Jeremy, my downstairs neighbor, the guy with no heat who complains about the landlord and has competing brunches with me? He is one of Wes Anderson's producers. He produces for Wes Anderson! Wes Anderson was basically like, "I've got this idea for a movie, want to make it with me?" and Jeremy is like, "Sure, Wes."

I want to be him so badly.



This post was meant to encapsulate the whole of my weekend but I already wrote a freaking tome about Friday night. I'll spare you the rest. Here's the short short version: I went to a NY Islanders game on Sat. night, my first hockey experience and it was awesome. Brutally awesome. On Sun., My wife and I looked at buying new homes in Ditmas Park. We are screwed, we'll never own any apartment bigger than a breadbox. That is all.

Stream of consciousness personal ad

I am a MAN!

I play D&D. I play WOW. I play chess online (not very well). I go to the gym. I play basketball. I run on the subway. I run on the beach with my brother his papillon. I drive a Dodge STRATUS! Actually I drive a 94 Volvo wagon. I eat meat. I don't eat seafood. I eat fruit every morning. My cum tastes like pineapples. I think. Therefore I am. I am a secretary. I wear short skirts. I put out for cash. I wear no makeup. I just bought two books and a teeshirt from Penny Arcade. I am currently wearing a headset for the telephone. My car gets 20 mpg, IF I'M LUCKY! I just left a message that was way too long. I tend to ramble on voicemail. I just want to get everything in there. I have to make people laugh for 20 minutes straight. I don't know how I'm going to pull that shit off. I am on the 51st floor. I email too often. I think I can fly. I am Brian McKnight. Or Rick James. I'm six feet tall. Or 5'10" but I'm rounding up. My penis is six inches of white meat. I like bacon. Better than sausage in the morning. Jimmy Dean is an asshole. Do you want to date me?

i am a man...

Friday and Subways

Here it is. Another week gone. woo.

I ride the subway here in New York everyday, sometimes four or 6 times a day (but always in multiples of 2). That's a lot of subwaying. I know many people hate the press and push of the masses on the trains. It can fucking piss you off. Like when all you want to do is get home, take your clothes off and veg in front of your media of choice, and there are about 5 million people in your way. But I love the subway. It's part of what makes New York the city it is. Where else are you bombarded with so much humanness?

Here is a non-comprehensive list in no particular order of the various characters I've observed on the MTA's New York City Transit:

• The Rabbit. These people know the exact door of the exact subway car which leads to the exact staircase they need to make the exact transfer. As soon as the door opens, they sprint out and run up the stairs willy-nilly, with no care for appearance or safety. I must confess that I am a rabbit. I run with the best of them, setting the pace for the pack. The rabbit hates to be caged in by the herd of cattle slowly marching up the stairs to their doom. The rabbit must run free.
• The Wall. Tall dudes, usually wearing puffy black coats, who stand in front of the subway car doors. The doorway is normally about five or six feet wide. When the Wall stands in it, suddenly the opening shrinks to two. And when there are two Walls (not an uncommon occurence) you have to push through like a baby pushing through a fat chick's vagina. No really, it's that bad.
• The Crazy Conductor. I've only encountered this once or twice in my career as a subway rider. Before the train announcments were automated on the newer cars, the conductor would get on the horn and shout out the current and next stops and end with the word "Standclearoftheclosingdoorsplease." As is common of MTA workers, though, most of the conductors had an outrageous foreign accent that only got magnified by crappy speakers. The announcements were unintelligble, and most subway veterans tuned them out. But once, while riding the L train under the East River, a conductor got on the mic with a message, "Don't just push and scrape onto the subway like animals. We are human beings, not cattle. Try to act like it." I'm sure that speech isn't exactly MTA protocol. Another time, I heard a conductor give out weather forecast information and his ironic predictions on the upcoming election. The smiling faces of the other passengers proved that this was a unique New York moment. I agree.

More subway characters to follow including but not limited to The Bitchy Mother, Subway Soundtrack , and Mr. I Just Crapped My Pants.

My web 2.0 footprint

You tempt fate every time you Google yourself. That's a given. You may end up with some embarassing diatribe you wrote when you were in school and the internet was young, or may see baby pictures your mom decided to post on Flickr to get back at you for not visiting them last weekend. Or worse, you may find nothing at all. Is there anything more depressing than a blank page? In this internet web 2.0 culture, if you don't even rank in the first ten entries, you're nothing. That's sad. Sadder than the end of Bridge to Terabithia.

So I googled me recently and I gagged, or gaggled. Sure there are more mundane entires about theater productions I produced or movie contests I was a semi-finalist for. But there is a ton actually written about my writing. I mean, yeah, I've written a few gaming articles. And it may be cheating. The demographic of people who read articles about video games are probably also the kind of people who'd be likely to blog about said article. But still, I was surprised and more than a little happy about it.

At the risk of getting needlessly messianic, I'm linking the hell out of myself. Hell, everyone deserves a little self-promotion every once in a while.

http://mac.joystiq.com/2005/11/15/wow-player-analyzes-pvp-cruelty/

This well-known gaming blog posted this over a year ago and I'm just internet savvy enough to find just now. It even has over 30 user comments about what happened to me and my level 29 Night Elf Priest in Wow. I wish I knew when it came out so I could have posted some shit-talk back to some of these fuckers.

Here are some other bloggers chiming about crap I wrote for the escapist:

http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/06/gaming-links.html

http://www.qj.net/Science-fiction-and-games-go-together/pg/49/aid/70525

http://www.gamepro.com/community/profile.cfm?login_name=Lunchbox&blog_id=14073

http://tlundmark.blogspot.com/2005/11/in-end-there-is-just-no-point.html

And it's not just blogging people. I love that my words are now being used as if I am an expert. Some people are desperate for any promotional material, I guess. On this page, something I wrote about a game engine is used to sell it to other video game makers:

http://www.bigworldtech.com/company/testimonials_en.php

In perhaps the strangest link of all, here I am cited in some dude's law school paper on gambling in MMORPGs:

http://webpages.acs.ttu.edu/mmetheni/Internet%20Gambling%20and%20the%20MMORPG.htm#_ftn51

Scrolling up, the citation is on the following line,

These formal studies are in addition to the high volume of more anecdotal documented odd behavior[51] mirroring other parts of the real society in the Society.

It's crazy, people are using my shit to write their freaking papers?

new design

I was getting tired of the old template. What do you dudes think about this fancy green one? Hold your applause, please, please, I'll be available for autographs by the stage door...

And because I feel guilty just posting that little statement, here's a picture of a douche on a banquette:

Ah, videogames

So Rain Delay's got an interesting bit about videogames helping surgeons perform better. Well, duh. We're talking about manual dexterity here and any activity which reinforces the brain-hand connection will improve performance. Videogames, the first truly interactive medium, can and have been shown to actually help mental and physical development, despite being portrayed as a time-wasting endeavor. The news outlets, like the Fair and Balanced Fox news affiliates (who really believes that 24 interviews are news?), love to pick up the banner against any violent acts perpetrated by admitted gamers. "The videogames made them do it." It's the same that was said of the Beatles, Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne and Barney the Purple Dinosaur. The truth is that no song or movie or book or game can make someone commit awful acts of violence. Gamers are especially sensitive to this line of reasoning because they've seen such mindless discrimination from their mothers for years. But sometimes, this senstivity goes a little too far.

Take the case of the kid in Wisconsin who is in jail for murdering a homeless person. CNN ran an article about the case, highlighting a dangerous trend of sport killings amongst the kids of America. There have been many homeless people killed the last few years by teenagers, perhaps because of a lack of moral understanding and/or consequences by disposing of an unwanted member of society, ie. a smelly homeless dude. There is more to be said about the kid's sense of superiority over those less fortunate (most of the perpetrators are middle-class white kids) and the ability to exact their own perverted sense of justice. One could even argue that our country's stance on the world stage as a moral superior, able to wreak havoc on any state or individual for a perceived lack of character, is more to blame. Fuck Saddam, we're better, let's kill him. (insert "that smelly homeless guy" for Saddam and you'll get my point)

All of this would have passed my notice however if it weren't for one line in the CNN story.

Ihrcke told police that killing "the bum" reminded him of playing a violent video game, a police report shows.

That's it. One line in a 2000 word story. Who knew that one little throwaway jab at videogames would ignite such passion in the gaming community? At least 3 major gaming blogs have cited the CNN article as another attack against videogames. I agree with their stance. I laughed at the jokes at CNN's expense. Gabe from Penny Arcade makes a very funny rebuttal, citing the story claiming that one of the assailant's rubbed his own feces on the dead homeless man:

"[Rule #]4. Don’t take shit out of your butt and rub it on the hobo you just killed. To me this seems like the easiest lesson of all. My son is only two and already he’s coming to understand that “poops” belong in the potty. How did this kid get to the age of fifteen years old without learning this? Here’s how easy this one is:

Hey son, come here real quick.
Yeah Dad?
Don’t take shit out of your butt.
Sure thing Dad.

Done! How hard was that? What kind of crazy fuck takes poop from his butt and rubs it on someone?"

But I think the gamer reaction is a little extreme. I mean, the videogames thing wasn't even the lead on the CNN story. It was one line from a quote from the kid himself. Yes, that angle is overplayed in the media. Yes, that kid is a dipshit (or rather, a very smart dipshit) for bringing it up. But come on, let's not make a Jack Thompson case out of it. It seems that the gamer community is now guilty of some of the same inflammatory tactics that their opponents always use. Maybe it's worth it to muster this kind of outrage at every disparaging mention of videogames in the press. Maybe. But maybe if we start taking every quote from an obviously crazy fuck as a serious accusation against gaming, then we are also adding credence to that accusation. I'm just saying.

Videogames have enough demons to battle without creating new ones.

(And sometimes those demons threaten to destroy Azeroth and we have to travel through the Dark Portal to battle the Burning Legion on the shards of wasted Draenor. Yeah, I've been playing too much WOW again.)

And for those of you who still cling to the belief that videogames corrupt absolutely, read this letter from the stepmom of one of the teens jailed in the case. It's a crazy read.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/02/21#1172088960

Bad Words

Every once in a while, I see some moron write something that inspires a scathing backlash essay. My friend sent me this link this morning from my hometown newspaper in Connecticut. It involves many things which I hold dear, UConn basketball, Gampel Pavilion, and swearing profusely.

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=38838b92-4244-42b7-b2e5-26f16600ef92

Here is my response, which I just emailed to the writer:

To Mr. Mike DiMauro:

RE: UConn Students Cross Line With Crass Behavior

I'm a UConn alum now living in New York. I've been following Huskies basketball for over 16 years and have been reading your writing in The Day for just as long. During that time, I've noticed your writing style degrade into simple, easy topics which the common reader in CT can consume without having their senior-citizen-values threatened. The pinnacle of which is the article a friend sent me this morning about UConn fans cheering at a game at Gampel. The piece is so fraught with fallacies that I'm not sure where to begin. According to your article, you expected this kind of a response, so I felt it was imperative that I indulge you.

The basic premise of your article is that you wish UConn fans, and sports fans in general, would resist the urge to cheer for their team. Or at least, they should only cheer in the way that you find acceptable. As long as we keep everything PG, the world is a better place. I whole-heartedly disagree with that attitude.

Today's organized sports grew out of the bloodsports of history, from Roman gladiatorial games to medieval jousting and combat. Watching the death of a criminal by hanging or otherwise was a common activity up until the 20th century. We, as a culture, have grown away from such profane entertainments, but there still exists a need in the human psyche for such exploits. We are fascinated by the unhealthy contest, the bitter struggling of individuals against any and all opponents. Our current fixation on reality TV proves this.

What does this have to do with UConn basketball? The contest of the two teams on the court can become an orgiastic experience for the spectator. I've been there. When I was a student, I had season tickets to the student section and rarely missed a game. I would yell anything that came to mind, such as "Kick them in the face!" or "Punch them in the throat!" I would even swear and use the f-word, if you can imagine. All of this behavior would increase my emotional involvement with the game. When UConn won, I would feel ecstatic. If they lost, melancholic.

Too often, I see fans sitting throughout the game, especially at the HCC. They only stand for the ceremonial first field goal, and then thereafter are planning to leave the arena with 10 mins left in the second half. These are the fans who cover their ten-year-old's ears from hearing the word "crackhead," as if they expected the game to be a showing of Happy Feet. Is this the behavior that you are encouraging? Or are you saying that fans should be raucous, but not too raucous? That is a difficult line to draw.

Perhaps the not-so-random shouting of fans (Paul Harris was actually indicted for drug sales and 3rd-degree assault) is actually a plea for an organized student section. I look at the Oakland Zoo in Pittsburgh and I wonder why nothing like that has grown at the University of Connecticut, which arguably has a program more steeped in basketball tradition than Pitt. Instead of suggesting the administration publicly censure the student fans in the Daily Campus, which I'm not confident would have the effect you intend, you could use your statewide circulation to call for a more organized and efficient cheering section.

Your article gets even more specious when you recommend Jim Calhoun write an email discouraging the use of expletives. You've been to many more games than I have, with a much closer vantage point to Calhoun's coaching style. Have you, sir, never heard Calhoun himself utter the dreaded f-word on the court? I have. Many, many times. Yet, in your piece, you say that he should be an advocate for decorum at Gampel. Perhaps you should, with all of your experience, tell Calhoun how he should coach a basketball game. I would cherish listening to his response for years to come. I bet he would drop some pretty big f-bombs on you.

Mr. DiMauro, you already named yourself many of the terms I might have used to describe your attitude so I will spare you any further name-calling. I will merely say that you are wrong. The behavior you suggest should be eliminated from the game is precisely what draws people to an athletic contest. We are not passively watching a movie or TV. The cheering or jeering of a crowd can actually influence the outcome of a game. It is why playing games in MSG or Cameron Indoor Stadium is infinitely more intense than at, say, the Hartford Civic Center. Gampel is the only arena UConn should play its games at because the student section is indeed raucous, supportive, loyal and occasionally profane. And that behavior helps the team win games.

Or did you want the Huskies to lose?


Let's see what happens. Maybe I'll be published in The Day tomorrow, maybe I'll never get a response. But somehow I feel a little better for having wrote that.

WhoreCraft

So there I was, minding my own business and not looking at porn at work. Then BANG!, I happen upon this crazy mashup:

The World of WhoreCraft

It's episodic pron content set in an Azeroth-like world with blood elves, hunters and rogues doing it from behind. No really, that's one of the episode titles. At first I thought it was kind of ridiculously derivative crap, but then I read an interview with the creator (?). He's been playing WOW for years while starring in and producing hundreds of porn videos. He wanted to combine his worlds. Hence, WhoreCraft. It makes perfect sense, if you think about it. The asthetic of warcraft is very much based in anime and its sensual conception of the female form. We all know night elves are hawt. It was inevitable really, given WOW's popularity, that someone would make the leap from sexy cartoons to real people screwing.

I haven't DLed the content myself yet, but I plan to tonight. It may be good, it may be crap. I'll let you know.

But all I know is, I spent way too much time looking at this stuff at my cubicle.

Movies that were good when you were 6...

But kind of suck when you watch them now.

A not-so-comprehensive list:

• The Neverending Story - I remember loving this delightful tale of the Nothing destroying all of Fantasia when I was a kid. I just watched it on netflix and I have to say, keep your nostalgia firmly ensconced in better fare. The ancient effects, nonsensical editing, and bad child acting, consisting of yelling every line "But that's impossible!", definitely ruin the meta-story. Why did I remember the Empress being hot? She was freaking 10 years old, what's wrong with me?
• The Money Pit - The only funny part is when Tom Hanks is stuck in the floor and does that weird barking laugh. The rest is actually rather sad and reminds me too much of life in my crappy apartment, where my shower has tiles falling on my head on a daily basis.
• Spies Like Us - Still has got some great moments with Chase and Akroyd, but the sequence at the end with the lasers and the missiles and the pudding pops are way too Reagan-era for me now. I used to love the Cold War, what happun?
• Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock - I used to think this one went against the odd-numbered Trek films rule, wherein they all suck, and pulled off Kirk and the Gang's weird quest to save Spock from being dead. After watching it as a mature human being though, I have to agree with what Trekkies (and everyone else) knew 20 years ago. It sucks.

Add your own tales of the disappointment in your childhood's ability to critically analyze films in the comments.

A tale of two blogs

I've been doing a lot of work over at my comedy blog, scheduling shit and talking up my gigs. I still have a lto of work do on it, making it pretty and adding pics and video (don't even get me started on how much my myspace page sucks). I'm wondering if it even makes sense to have two blogs at this point. I mean, sure, it's nice to be able to post crap here that's on a more personal level, but that's part of the joy of blogging really, the baring of all your soul.

My dream is to have several urls which would point to the different aspects of my creative professional life. I'd have only one blog that I'd post to and give tags to each facet, like comedy, playwriting or producing. And the url producer.gregtito.com would only display blog entries with that tag. Is that even possible? Is it even necessary?

What think you, my loyal commenters?

Anyway, i thought I'd just point out to you that I do in fact have another blog, just in case you didn't know. There it is.

Bad Luck Streak

We all have the shit hit the fan sometimes, but I think I've had a pretty awful lot recently. Here's a bulleted list, in no particular order, of the crap that's happened to me in the last few weeks.

• My Honda got hit while parked
• Got speeding ticket while looking for new car
• Bought a used car which so far doesn't have working heat (or a front grille, don't know how I missed that)
• Missed playing in my basketball game last night because I was dealing with car crap
• Had sore throat for the last week
• Spent hours writing for this website only to figure out today that I will never get paid for any of it
• Pissed off the guy running said website by apparently snarky emails which I thought were clear and mature
• My new camera broke while I was in Russia
• My filet mignon from said russian restuarant looked/tasted more like Fried Ratnon
• Mephistopholes will never trust me to purchase cars again

I thought it would be a much longer list actually. Maybe my life's not as bad as I make it out to be. Yeah, right. And maybe I'm a Chinese Jet Pilot.

What Bush can do to stop health care costing an arm and a leg

Interesting discussion going on at my brother-in-law's blog re: health care.

http://blog.chemacki.com/?p=201

Here's a tidbit:

I do have a problem with the amount of money those in the medical profession charge. For today’s visit, I literally spent 5 minutes with a physician’s assistant and was charged over $175. That’s over $2,100 per hour! What the @#&$! I’m sorry, but I have a real problem with that. I’m guessing the idea is that the $175 is an hourly charge. But I should not be charged for the 45+ minutes I spent waiting…while they also charged other patients for the same full hour as well. This is total bullshit. I don’t understand how this is even legal, but every doctor’s office does it. No wonder they all drive Mercedes and Porsches and live in 5000 square foot houses.

My response:

Here’s an idea, what if a hospital offered customers a monthly plan to use the services of their doctors. Say $200/month for unlimited services, with a deductible for major surgeries. Think of it as a finance plan for health care. That would save billions of dollars by wiping out the need for insurance. There are holes in that plan, of course (like what happens if you get injured while you’re out of town?), but I think it’s a start.

Car update

More news on the car, I got the accident report and the driver was actually a FEMALE. I know, I know, spare me the woman driver jokes, I've already made them all in my head.

And even though the car service company is insured, they are late on their payments and the policy was terminated as of 1/14/07. That's 3 days before the accident for those of you counting at home. And the place where I had the car towed hasn't yet estimated the damage on the car. It's been there almost a week. I just called to check what the damage is and Rusty or Ralphie or whatever the fucking guy's name is said he was looking for 91 Acura in the lot and couldn't see it. I told him I have a 91 Honda, not an acura. He said, "Oh." Maybe he'll call me back today, maybe not. It doesn't really matter at this point.

I'm paralyzed. I can't make a claim on somebody who doesn't have insurance. And I can't file anything with small claims court because I don't know what the damage is.

You know what time it is?

Hurry up and wait...

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stilll waiting...


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Never liked that car anyway

There it is. My car was smashed by a drunk car service driver in Brooklyn. I didn't even find out about it until I happened to glance down the street. I thought, "Huh, why is my hood open?" Then I knew. I rushed down the block to find the little as yet unnamed Honda crushed on two fronts, shards of colored plastic on the ground surrounding it.

Ironically, the car was parked in front of a bar. I went in, slightly in shock, and asked the first waitress I saw what had happened to my car. She looked at me like I was crazy. "Didn't you notice the car smashed up right outside?" "What?" was all she could muster. I looked for a bartender. He said that he wasn't working when it happened, by he heard from the previous tender that my Honda got hit the night before, almost 20 hours before I first noticed it.

I called 911, they sent a patrol car full of veteran cops with perfect Brooklyn accents. "Oh yeah, that happened last night as I was finishing up my shift. They arrested the guy, DUI." The precinct had an accident report filed already but the helpful clerk I spoke to there said she couldn't give me any information about the case. "It's just our policy." I don't have collision on my car, it's not worth anything so why waste the money? But because this crap wasn't my fault, I might be able to collect from the drunk dude's insurance. Problem is, I can't find out what his insurance company is because the cops won't tell me until the accident report is processed. We're talking weeks here.

So I got the thing towed. AAA was a pain because they wouldn't let me tow it if the car hadn't already been moved from the scene of a crime. Apparently, if the cops had deigned to move the Honda ten feet, then it was legal for AAA to move. If not, which the cops were too lazy to do, then it was illegal. I talked to the supervisor at AAA for fifteen minutes until I was like, "Can we just start this conversation over with me saying that the car had been moved?" To his credit, whether he knew it was an asinine bureaucratic policy or if he was just annoyed with talking to me , he capitulated and sent the truck.

Luckily, as the car was being towed, a random hipster came up to me and told me that his SUV was the vehicle that my car was pushed into (there's barely a scratch on his bumper, BTW.) He was at the scene when it happened, and filled in a few blanks for me. The car was indeed a livery car. The dude was indeed arrested. He apparently swerved to avoid hitting something, rear ended my parked car, which then smashed into his car. He gave me his card and said he took a bunch of photos. He emailed them to me the next day, the pic at the top is his.

I played detective for the next day or so, trying to track down who hit my car. The livery guy's license plate number was on one of the helpful hipsters pictures. I went to this site and searched for it. The car is registered to Saleem Motors, which has an address and phone number listed in Long Island City. Problem is, the number is never answered and goes to a fax machine eventually. Who knows what's going on there? I could drop by the address, it's not that far, but it's cold out, and there's prolly nobody there.

So I'm playing the waiting game. I can't do anything until the report is available. My car is being stored at an auto body shop and will get estimates done on it on Monday. I'm pretty sure it's toast. Look at this photo, the radiator and grill are smashed, the hood is gone and the battery is dislodged. The car only has a blue book of about $1400 anyway. Repairing it is going to cost way more than that. I've started looking for new cars in the hood. These look promising but I kinda wish I had something right now. You don't realize how much you use a car in the city until you can't.

The frustrating thing is that in no way is this my fault (I wasn't even in the car) but somehow I know that I'll be the one penalized. One day I had a perfectly working car. The next, it's gone. Fucking bullshit.

An event

So I was there in Midtown at the Best Buy on 5th and 44th. I left my apartment in brooklyn around twenty minutes before. Driving over the williamsburg bridge was a relative breeze. As I drove through the First Avenue tunnel and swung around so that I could go down Fifth, I was worried that I was too late. I mean, I had worked it out so that I would be at the store just as they opened their doors. Would I be too late? Would I not be able to purchase a copy of the first World of Warcraft Expansion Pack, The Burning Crusade? Or even worse, would I be forced to stand in line for hours, enduring the city's new found winter wind, and not be able to obtain a Collector's Edition of the aforementioned electronic entertainment product? I'm sure you are riveted.

There was a line of like-minded dudes who couldn't bear to wait until daylight on the day of the pack's release. It wasn't that crazy, maybe about 150 people. The thing that struck me was how the crowd was a complete cross-section of the city's population. Every race and/or age group was represented. There was a couple in their thirties with their 9 year old son. I saw several twosomes of run of the mill dudes wearing barn jackets and bad leather shoes. Ten feet behind me there was a Yo with a visor on backwards and upside down who was talking loudly into his cellphone about having kicked ass at a WOW trading card game tournament. A few hetero Asian couples bought their copies to ostensibly continue playing together. I saw a man in his fifties standing in line wearing an enormous black cowboy hat. There was a tiny Mexican right behind me wearing a Yankees cap (I was wearing my Sox colors, funny how WOW brings us all together.) We chatted a bit as we watched the customers ahead of us carting out multiple copies of the game. "What the fuck, how could they let them buy ten copies?" Both of us were worried that the store would run out of Collector's Editions (CEs) before we got in there. We never mentioned baseball.

I got inside, and on an impulse bought two CEs. I thought I'd be able to use one and ebay the other. I mean they are up there. I drove home and my wife, Mephistopholes, promptly made fun of me for the dork I am.

Then because I hate myself, I stayed up until 2 or 3 installing the game and looking all the neat things in the CE. I'm going to go home after work and rub it all over my body. If you're lucky, I'll post the pics.

Someone call a dentist, it's going to be a long night

This is probably the coolest thing I've seen constructed out of gummi bears, toothpicks and Nerds. A whole lot of nerds.

http://missedmanners.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/what-i-did-over-christmas-vacation/

Just in case you were unclear

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft®, its
subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is
now played by more than 8 million gamers around the world. World of Warcraft has
also achieved new regional subscriber milestones, with more than 2 million
players in North America, more than 1.5 million players in Europe, and more than
3.5 million players in China.

World of Warcraft is huge. In case you weren't listening, they just announced that they have over 8 million subscribers. 8 million! That's freaking huge. Just to put that in perspective, Everquest, SOE's POS, topped out at around 500,000. That's like 6% of the numbers that WOW has now. And that's right before they will have a huge surge of new fanboys because of the expansion coming out next week. Expect the next announcement to top 10 million. We have an epidemic on our hands, ladies and gentlemen. And the only cure is some Strong Anti-Venom, or maybe a Healing Potion Injector.

Read the full press release: http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml