Brüno - Friday, July 31, 2009
Umlauts! Have you seen Brüno? No? Why not? I went to see it last week at the movie theater that’s in walking distance from my apartment. That movie theater has no arcade! No Time Crisis, no DDR, no nothing! They’re one of those movie theaters with a restaurant inside of them, you can eat and watch a movie. I haven’t bothered to check that out and I really have no interest in doing so. I don’t really eat out all that much. I don’t want to say “Table for 1, please”, that’s kinda lame. So it’s your typical 30 screen theater with no arcade. It has stadium seating. It has slightly reclining seats. It has cuddly armrests. “Cuddly armrests?” you ask. Yes, those are the armrests that fold up and out of the way so you can get all cuddly with whoever you want to get cuddly with in the seat next to you. It’s disgusting.
So about Brüno: it’s really gay. I don’t mean gay as in stupid, I mean gay as in extremely homosexual. It’s also hilarious: painfully hilarious. The knee-slappers are so numerous, I broke my kneecap. I’ll never walk again, but it was worth it. I’m surprised and impressed by how far Sasha Baron Cohen will go for a character. The “burly” brawl of Borat has nothing on this movie. Nothing. Don’t bring the kids, they will be traumatized. On second thought, bring the kids. Those punks need to toughen up.
André//8:52 PM//I'm surprised 2 people left commentsThings I Hate - Sunday, July 26, 2009
This is mostly just an opportunity to use some of the nice features of the WYSIWIG editor for Wordpress. I was doing everything before in hand-coded HTML. While that was very manly, it was also very tedious. So yes, a list of things I hate.
- Top 10 lists – These lists have been popping up on the internet for quite some time (see Cracked.com). They don’t necessarily have to contain 10 things, the number of items involved doesn’t affect my argument against them. The biggest problem I have is the “top” part. It’s a mighty big claim to say X things are the top X such things. It’s even worse when it’s the top X things ever. Now you’re claiming that they’re the top X things that are, and will ever be. Such list usually don’t hold water if you can’t measure the items on it objectively. Who are you to say these items on your list are the top X items, random internet dude? I doubt you’re an expert in the field of whatever-we’re-talking-about. I’m sure you didn’t consult the experts in the field, or even anybody else. It’s just you and your opinions; this isn’t a problem, but it is when you make such lofty claims. You might be thinking “Wow André, this sounds like it wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t use the word ‘top’ or its synonyms!” Well, you’re right. Drop that one word, and I could care less. They could also add “as decided by me” to the end in lieu of getting rid of “top”. It’s even better when they don’t specify how many things are in the list.
- Huge sunglasses and the people who wear them. I also hate the stupid plastic “glasses” Kanye West wears. Stupid gay fish.
- The Spy! He saps my sentries and stabs me in the back when I’m healing my buddies. Jerk.
- Weddings. They always seem to inconvenience me in one way or another. If I ever con a woman into loving me (not for my cash) and agreeing to marry me, you won’t hear me say “I’m getting married!”. You’ll likely hear “I got married yesterday. We went down to the courthouse and made it happen.” You’ll also hear “I’m loving this bacon faucet I installed in my kitchen sink”, because that’s something else that happens in bizzaro world. Also in bizzaro world, no woman wants to go through a wedding, many manly men get excited about weddings like South Korean schoolgirls near a professional Starcraft player (they love Starcraft), and Christmas never gets ruined.
- Bathrooms with only two urinals. You might as well just have one urinal, because proper urinal etiquette dictates that you don’t pee in the urinal next to someone. It’s just wrong.
- People with no urinal etiquette. I’m trying to pee and some dude rolls up to the urinal next to me. Jerk.
- People who ask “How are you?” I’m not talking about your (jerk) friends, I’m talking about random people. You cross paths with someone you don’t know, and they’re all “How are you?” or “What’s up?”. Why does this annoy me? Because they don’t stop walking. How am I going to get more than a word in you keep walking away? I guess either they’re stupid, or they don’t care how I’m doing. I also hate it when I’m at Wal-Mart or some other store and the cashier ask “How are you?” You don’t care! You ask that to everybody. You don’t want to hear about how my wife left me, my kids hate me, how I lost my job, and how my bills are piling up. This is why I just say “Dandy” when responding to that question, regardless of how true it may or may not be.
- It seems no store in Olathe has self-checkout lanes. Even Wal-Mart? It’s been hard without self-checkout lanes. That’s where I go when I don’t want to talk to a casheir, and I never do.
- Guys who wear tight pants, and the ladies that are all over them.
- Guys who pop their collar, and the ladies that are over them.
- Douchebags, and the ladies that are all over them.
- People who can’t differentiate between confidence and blind faith. They tell me to have one, but they always mean the other. Which one is which is an exercise left to the reader.
- Anime series that has a read-the-manga ending. Way to leave me hanging. You couldn’t even be bothered to BS an ending, could you? Berserk, I’m looking at you. You’re on notice. Inuyasha, I’m no longer mad at you, for you’re getting a animated conclusion.
- The PC vs. Mac commercials. So very inaccurate. My PC doesn’t get viruses, because I use Linux (and I’m not completely stupid). I plug a camera into my computer, and Linux is all over that. Rebooting? That’s for babies. They should be more accurate and say “I’m a PC using Windows, and I’m a Mac using Mac OS X.whatever”, but they won’t do that.
- The complete lack of new Dave Chappelle funny.
- The fact that they’ll eventually stop showing new episodes of Better Off Ted every week. I can’t think of a single show on TV right now that’s funnier than Better Off Ted. It’s the opposite of Seinfeld, because Better Off Ted is incredibly funny and Seinfeld is incredibly unfunny. I don’t even know why people think that show is the bee’s knees. You know what?
- Seinfeld. It’s not funny.
- Johnny Depp. I don’t really know why, I just do.
My computer is awesome - Monday, July 20, 2009
I built a new computer, and she is a beast. Best $1500 I’ve ever spent. I got a Intel Core i7 920 in there, and it is so absurdly fast. Screw Core 2 Duos, screw Core 2 Quads, the Core i7’s are where it’s at (I got two turntables and a microphone). It’s also got a GeForce GTX 275 video card: I can play Crysis. Not that I’d really want to play anything more than the demo, but if I wanted to, I could play it with the settings all the way up (except AA…sad face). I’ve got 6 GBs of DDR3 RAM up in her (that sounds unplesant, actually), and I’ve yet to use all of it. I’m sure I’ll find a use for it. Let’s talk about monitors. Now one might say that their 23″ monitor is awesome. Now I’m not trying to say my business card is better than anybody else’s (it could be, who knows?), but let me put it this way: I got two business cards. These two business cards span the entire length of my desk; it’s a sight to behold (I should take a picture; I should buy a camera). I also have the best wallpaper ever for my business cards:
Yeah buddy. I’ve been using my new compy to play Team Fortress 2 (with absolutley everything setting turned up on high). I’ve considered giving WoW a try (I can’t knock it until I’ve tried it), but why would I play that when TF2 exists? Can I throw a jar of urine at someone in that game? I don’t think I can. Does a large Russian man tell me that we need to “push little cart”? I don’t think so. The best part about TF2 is when you win. When you achieve victory, your team gets to run around killing the other team. The other team can’t do anything because they’re too shamed to use their weapons. When you’re on the losing team, you have to hide if you don’t want to get killed in the face. You know what? I think I’ll go play some TF2 right now.
André//4:19 PM//Someone felt like leaving a commentSo many pixels - Sunday, July 19, 2009
I’ve recently come into possession of the needlessly large TV I’ve considered buying. Now I have an HD TV, and HD channels to watch on my HD TV. Those extra pixels make a huge difference. It’s like going from a Pentium 2 to a Pentium 4. I should know, for I’ve done such a thing. Now I see why people make such a big deal about HD, because it is awesome. The first thing I did when I set up my TV was kill zombies. Resident Evil 5 is pretty in SD, but when you add pixels, it’s like you’re looking at reality…a reality in which you kill zombies. Have you seen Law and Order in HD? It makes the justice that gets dispensed so much better. Everything should be watched in HD. Too bad I’m not ready to make the plunge into Blu-ray (that is a pretty dumb name). As much as I love HD, it doesn’t seem worth it. This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if I bought a PS3, but what games would I play on it? I don’t think LittleBigPlanet is worth the money; it’s not Team Fortress 2 (which is amazingly awesome). I think I’ll buy a TV with HD awesomeness for my room. The lack of pixels makes watching Law and Order from bed (I wish I could stop watching it) a bit underwhelming.
André//12:28 AM//No one ever leaves commentsCanada - Monday, July 13, 2009
Let me tell you about my trip to Montréal. Why was I in Montréal? GECCO! A paper I wrote got accepted as a poster, which means I have to show up and show off my poster if I want to get published in the proceedings, and I want a frickin’ publication; thus, to Canada I go. Let me tell you some things.
Going through security sucks. It really sucks. Waiting for the plane sucks, especially at airports where they don’t have free wi-fi (KC International is pimp because of its free wi-fi). Getting on the plane sucks, because the people in front of you want to take their sweet time sitting down. However, I realized that flying is awesome. We put gravity over our knees, and broke it like so. I was flying! In the air! How awesome is that? Very. I was on the ground, and then I was not. I don’t know why I got nervous when we were turning. I know planes need to bank when making a turn. I know traveling by plane is the safest way to travel. However, I don’t want to die! I’ve so much to live for! Team Fortress 2! The new Tarentino movie! New episodes of Law and Order! You know what else sucked? Customs. That agent wanted to punch my face in for some reason. Why am I here? I’m here for a conference! Do I have a written invitation to GECCO? We’re computer scientists! We’ve no need for stupid paper. Do I have a written reservation to the hotel I’m staying at? Does anyone ever now-a-days? I had to go to immigration (that’s what they called it; I don’t want to live there), which sucked. I don’t know what they did, but the guy there asked me the same questions. He was far more pleased to see me than the other prick (yes, prick) was.
When I arrived to Montréal, I noticed something. Everything was in French. I thought Canada spoke English/French, but it seems they speak French/English (maybe) in Montréal. All the signs were in French, although there was some stuff in French/English. Most people seem to be bilingual here. I never got use to people trying to talk to me in French. The words go into my ear, and my brain returns a parse error. The lady at the register at McDonalds said “Bonjour!” followed by some stuff in french, and I just started laughing for some reason. Laughter is contagious, because she started laughing too.
My hotel is in downtown Montréal; it’s not the nicest hotel, but I’ve lived in much worse places. There’s a pizza place on the bottom floor, and I decided to get my pizza on. So I got some pizza, took it to my room, and opened the cover. There were sesame seeds on the crust, but I didn’t dismiss it outright. I decided to give it a chance, so I bit into a slice of pizza. That pizza was disgusting. Repugnant. It was the worst pizza I have ever had in my life. My body reacted violently to it. So I decided to play it safe and go to McDonalds, which was down the street from my hotel. So I wandered across downtown Montréal. The nightlife here is…well, it exists. There were a lot of people walking about, a lot of adult entertainment, a lot of fancy (overpriced) clothing stores, and a lot of hipsters. They were everywhere. And don’t get me started on the jerkfaced jerks with popped collars. Every time I saw somebody with a collar popped around their neck, I just wanted to snap said neck and put them out of their misery. Sure, they probably aren’t miserable, but I won’t let that stop me. There was an arcade right next to my hotel room too! It was awesome! My only complaint was the In The Groove 2 machine they had only let you play 2 songs per round! 2! That’s messed up! I always thought 3 was the standard. 1st song is your warm up song, 2nd song is a real song that you know you can beat, and the last song is the song you can go all out on. They also had a game called Razing Storm. It’s like Crisis Zone 2. It was sweet. I had numerous bullets that went into numerous guys.
Speaking of things that are numerous, I noticed something when walking around downtown Montréal: there seem to be an overwhelming abundance of alarmingly attractive women in Montréal. Of course, I really don’t have anything to compare this number too. I spent most of the last 6 years of my life in Rolla, where the women were few in number, and the attractive women were an endangered species (and never single). I haven’t been downtown in a major metropolitan area where people walk around before this week. So there might not really be a correlation between Montréal and attractive women. In order to determine if such a correlation exists, I would need to at least walk around major metropolitan areas of comparable size and observe not only the hottie-to-nottie ratio, but also the male-to-female ratio. However, correlation doesn’t imply causation; more analysis would be required to figure out why there were so many hot chicks in Montréal. The last few sentences make me realize why I’m single.
The whole reason I was there was to show of my poster to various people, so that’s what I did. Surprisingly, that wasn’t so bad. Sure, I was standing for two hours, but that wasn’t so bad. I kinda got offended when people looked at my poster and walked away without asking me anything. Travis suggested that I actually greet them, but I wasn’t that offended. Besides, maybe they just weren’t interested. I would be pulling them into a conversation that they probably don’t want to be in, and that’s not cool. I talked to random people there, like some dude named Claus from Japan. No, I am not making that up. His Japanese accent was oh so slight; his l’s were perfect. I missed all the workshops I was interested in attending, and I couldn’t really go to any of the presentations due to my desire to sleep and my need to catch the plane, so I didn’t really see much else. Do I regret going to Canada? Not really.
I’m sure I’m leaving out some stuff, but you’ll live.
André//6:09 PM//Someone felt like leaving a commentReboot! - Sunday, July 12, 2009
Let me break out with the history. I first started my blog on July 9th, 2002: the summer before 12th grade. I was 17 at the time; in retrospect, I was lame. I’d like to think that I’m slightly less lame than I was 7 years ago. So I’ve decided to start the blog anew for various reasons. I’ve deleted everything. All 1247 posts I’ve made are gone. Of course, I saved them to my hard drive before deleting them from the server. I’ve even changed the layout a bit. It’s a white background as you can see, and I’m sure people will tell me that I’ve never used a white background. However, those people would be wrong. So, since I’m officially starting over, I guess I shall say a little about myself.
- I’m André.
- I get paid to program.
- I’m a master, and I have the degree to prove it.
- I like to play music, but I’m not very good at it.
- I’ve been single since…forever.
- I love unhappy endings.
- I loathe having my picture taken.
- I loathe those who take my picture.
That pretty much accurately describes me.
André//9:56 PM//I'm surprised 5 people left commentsThis blog is powered by Wordpress and hosted by E-Rice.