Perpetual Beta

I don’t typically get political in this forum but bear with me for a paragraph or two.

The recently concluded RNC has me in such a tither that I just have to voice a thought or two. The first of which is I can’t believe the hypocrisy with which they address the American people. I had never even heard the term “executive experience” before this week, but apparently I’m supposed to believe it’s the superior form of experience, I guess like rest XP in WoW. Putting aside for a moment that that’s total bullshit, do they not realize that any shot they take at Obama for being just a Senator hits McCain as well? No wait, he gets a pass on that (and everything else) because he’s a war hero. My bad on that one. But I suppose the Republicans are right, guys like JFK were totally shitty presidents.

One more point on hypocrisy, you don’t get to paint your ticket as the ticket of reform when the guy at the top votes with the sitting president 90% of the time. Oh and also? The Republicans have been in control for the last 8 fucking years. Or maybe they are talking about “executive reform” or something.

Secondly, the Republicans have the mental capacity of goldfish. Or more precisely, think the American people do. Every policy stance seems to be a great idea in the near term and terrible in the short. Off-shore drilling? (the “drill now” chant will haunt me for years to come) Sure, that will work out much better than actually reducing the amount of oil we consume. Lowering taxes even more? Well, I’d love the money but that plan hasn’t exactly stimulated the economy so far. Sticking around in Middle East for the foreseeable future? Sure, they seem to just love us over there up in their faces like that, why not make it permanent. No one ever resents being occupied by a foreign power…

Lastly, I watched some of McCain’s speech tonight (I started frothing at the mouth and had to turn it off) and he was literally addressing the delegates as if they were 6 year old. To paraphrase slightly: I want to cut taxes where I can, my opponent wants to raise them. I want to make government smaller, my opponent wants to make it bigger. I want to create more jobs, my opponent wants to cut jobs. Aside from either being incorrect at best or outright lies at worst, it was some of least nuanced, patronizing, and amateurish speaking I’ve heard recently.

I could go on and on and on, but that would just insure I get so worked up I can’t get to sleep again tonight, so I’ll leave you with one chilling thought. All that bullshit? Might actually work.

August is a pretty slow month, even for the summertime. Not only are a lot of people on vacation, the people that aren’t tend to be giving less than 100%. Not a criticism by any stretch, we all need a break, but it creates a void into which other influences that normally wouldn’t have an opportunity can take purchase.

Allow me to demonstrate.

A lot of the podcasts I listen to have had less than normal release schedules, and as a result there’s been a dearth of material to listen to. Unfortunately my travel time has remained constant, so I’ve actually gone back and re-listened to some of my favorites. After polishing off the complete run of You Look Nice Today I was searching for something more. I remembered enjoying (though not really understanding) a series of shows featuring Gabe and Tycho (Mike and Jerry, in the common tongue) and Scott Kurtz playing the ultimate nerd adventure, Dungeons and Dragons. So I gave another listen.

Now I may be quite the geek/nerd, but one ace in the hole I could always pull in my defense was that I had absolutely zero experience with “DnD”. Unfortunately the extremely humorous banter between Mike, Jerry, and Scott was threatening to change all that. It sounded like they were having fun…a lot of fun. Not only that, but they weren’t huge DnD guys themselves, and yet there it was, fun! How tempting!

So thusly buoyed I decided to check it out a little deeper. Turns out that there are several people that I know that have played before! Secret nerds right before my very eyes, hiding in plain sight. I pressed on, reading about how the current version is simpler and more accessible to “normies” such as myself. Awesome. My girlfriend even thought the idea wasn’t the most horrible thing she had ever heard and claimed the whole thing was “kind of cute”. Unprecedented.

I figured it was safe for me to take a real step and drop a few ducats on a book. This is where I hit a brick wall. The book wasn’t easy to find, but I eventually ended up in a dimly-lit game store being assisted by a clerk sporting both a neck beard AND a fanny pack. This was almost too much to bear, but I made my purchase and got the hell out of there as quickly as possible and with as much of my dignity as I could scavenge.

Now I’m not sure I want to continue. If these are sorts of places I have to travel and the sorts of people I have to interact with I just as soon shelve the book and forget this whole mess ever happened. Maybe I’ll still get my buddies together and give the old d20 a roll (I’ve never actually seen one in person), but I’m really a bit put off by the path I may be starting down…

I wish Leo had never gone on vacation.

Reaganomics may not have exactly panned out, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t on to something.

A friend of mine recently bought a new camera and asked for my opinion (she didn’t listen to it, but then again she never does) but it did remind me why I got the camera that I got about a year ago. This theory also applies to things like televisions and speakers, the latter of which I’ll be purchasing when I can. But I digress…

The theory goes something like this: all things being equal the product from the company that makes a higher quality line will be better. Allow me to explain. In addition to making point-and-shoot cameras, Canon also makes big bad DSLR’s. My theory states that some of that high quality construction, research, and innovation from the DSLR line will make it’s way down into the measly point-and-shoot cameras.

I have no idea if this theory is true or not, but it feels good so I go with it. I got the idea from speaker shopping, it seemed to follow that if you want a $600 pair of speakers, you should go with a line that starts around there rather than ends there. I suppose it’s the same reason you never want to have the nicest house in the neighborhood. Or so they tell me.

The theory probably doesn’t hold up in all cases, but at the moment I’m hard-pressed to come up with an example. Feel free to drop me a note with any suggestions.

By this logic I guess this means my next car should be a BMW.

More content from a movie you love that may be of questionable quality (there is a reason these scenes get deleted) but fills in plot holes or a tighter yet shorter overall film?

I had this whole rant ready to go about Netflix’s shipping woes and how my queue probably means they are shipping my movies out next Wednesday, as opposed to meaning yesterday.

Yup, I was all set. And then I checked the mail today. Turns out they really did ship out yesterday and I had 2 discs waiting for me. For some reason it always takes Blu-Ray discs an extra day to get here, maybe it takes longer to send the extra resolution, I don’t know. And before anyone gives me any crap for renting National Treasure 2, at least I didn’t pay to see it in the theaters.

I guess it didn’t matter anyway, cause all I watch right now is the Olympics anyway.