Entries Tagged 'stupidity' ↓

This might be an unfair blanket statement, but I doubt it.

I had to go to a Wal-Mart today, a Super Wal-Mart at that. Naturally an exercise in frustration and infuriation. I decided while I was there, though, I’d pick up a copy of Jesse Ventura’s book American Conspiracies. Best seller, recently release, easy to find, right? Nope. Nothing. No books.

None.

Not even Twilight or some other romance novels. You can always find a Dean Koontz book or something, right? Not anymore.

I already fear for the literacy of the nation, and to see that a very busy Wal-Mart has given up books that tells me most people have as well. If there’s a market, that store will carry anything. There are no books. That means so few people are buying they’ve lost interest even in best sellers, and as much as I’d like to think it’s due to e-readers, it’s not. They’re growing but far from saturating. No, it just means that we’re all going the way of Laredo I fear. At least in the past people read on the internet, but now who bothers to read when there’s YouTube and podcasts?

The written word really may be dead.

Cable companies are trying to convince me OnDemand is better than Netflix, because I can rent, say, Sherlock Holmes right now.

It’s true, I can. I have to wait a month for Netflix. I also don’t have to pay 7 dollars for the movie when it comes out, fight through the awful OnDemand interface, tiling, and every other problem the cable company can throw at me.

You know what else is shitty about OnDemand? EVERYTHING.

In my attempts to watch The Ricky Gervais Show on it, the episode listing is as such.

The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…

The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…

The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…

The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…

The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…

The Ricky Gervais Show: Episo…

Seeing the problem here? No? That’s because you use common sense. You presume the episode listing is number one at the top and six at the bottom, or reverse depending on how they sort. But you, sir, are wrong.

The current order is 4, 3, 6, 5, 2, 1. You can’t tell, however, without another menu dive, and then backing out of it, which takes you back to the HBO series menu, then back to Ricky Gervais, then down to the next episode. God forbid OnDemand actually remember where you were in a menu. Or work. Episode six is actually episode four right now. And for some reason there’s no HD option for HBO. There’s no HD option for a lot of things, but as HBO costs good money, I’d expect it.

But this is the same company who’s DVRs forget to record all the time, and whose buffer is randomly deleted. For those not in the know, the DVRs are supposed to record the last hour of TV on the channel you’re on, so you can rewind or replay. Great idea, right? Doesn’t work. Cox sends out a signal bump three or four times a day that deletes the buffer. If you’re behind you’ll be shot up to the live signal, and what you were watching is gone. Hopefully you didn’t start recording late, because if you did, the end of it just got cut off. For some reason, the software acts like its copying from VHS rather than a digital source, committing information to the drive in real time. If you start recording at 7, you’re done at 8. If you start recording at 7:05, however, even if you’re watching live, the recording ends at 8:05. It’s the same data was was from 7 to 8, but it’s off  by that amount of time. And if the data gets reset at 8, you just lost the last five minutes. It’s one of the many, many things brought to you by shitty Scientific Atlanta programming and Cox’s insistence that the box they’re charging you $12 a month for is high quality.

I’ll have more examples of how this is the opposite of truth soon, I’ve got a nice notepad file of notes growing.

It’s 2010. We can agree on that, yes? At least by the Gregorian calender, it’s 2010 CE/AD.

According to the IRS, it’s 2009.

According to Glendale Community College, it’s 2010, but when I start classes in August, which end in December, they take place in 2011. By their calender, 2010 ends in July.

My 2009 taxes are done in 2010, and they taxes which occur in 2009 determine the state of the grants and scholarships which happen in the 2011 school year, which actually happens in 2010.

I’m going to travel 3 years in five months somehow. I do not understand it.

That’s good. That means you’re thinking.

I’ve just realized that people who never feel that way probably ARE wrong.

Among recent people who’ve never felt they could be wrong-

Osama Bin Laden
George W Bush
Sarah Palin
Dick Cheney
Kim Jong Il
Jon Kyl
Joe Arpaio
Glenn Beck
Bill O’Reilly
Marshall Applewhite
Pope Benedict
Fred Phelps
Stephen Colbert (The character, not the actor)
Dale Gribble

And, most damning of all, Christian Weston Chandler.

No, that’s not a typo.

That’s what I just heard on the commercial for the Maricopa County Fair. “Meet Dorai in person!” it says, while showing a giant foam rubber suit Dora. Or maybe it’s not. This is Arizona, dirt poor and stupid.

I can’t tell if someone just didn’t do the research, they were too cheap to rerecord, or they didn’t want to pay for an actual Dora the Explorer appearance, so have gone with a similar but legally distinct version. Either way, my head, it meets the desk.

Facebook ads, this time, which do fail pretty often.

I did, in fact, drive to Movie Gallery! Well, Hollywood Video, but it’s the same company.

Of course, that ended for everyone when the company went into Chapter 11.

Facebook ads-Showing you a picture of your wife and asking if you’re into horny singles since 2004.

“If you’re using the leading toothpaste, you may be missing a key ingredient for a healthy mouth.” 10 seconds later, “Crest is the leading toothpaste, with all the key ingredients for a healthy mouth.”

Wait, what?

“Crest? Man, fuck that guy. He’s number one, woo!”

When did the two become so hard to differentiate?

I thought this was simple enough. I learned in third grade what the difference was, afterall. Hell, got 10/10 on the test! The irony is the teacher got 9/10. I remember distinctly the point of contention.

“Fact or opinion: Spiders are smart.”

Opinion. Pretty simple, right? But the teacher said “Well, the guide says opinion, but if they weren’t smart they couldn’t make the webs they do, so I’ll take either answer.” This was a smart teacher too, this was an AP class! And yet, there it was.

Just a few days ago I watched J.D. Hayworth, noted moron/jackass but also former elected official, claim that he disagreed with someone on a fact.

A fact. Facts are, simply put, things that are real. There is no subjective choice, there’s a reality, and there’s a total lack thereof. J.D. Hayworth says Massachusetts defines marriage as the “establishment of intimacy.” It doesn’t. The words aren’t there, at all. You cannot marry your horse as he said you could by that clause.

Rachel Maddow correctly pointed this out, that those words do not agree in the document he’s referring to. And he says “Well we disagree on that.”

One person may love chartreuse, everyone else can hate it. That’s how opinion works. You may not, however, debate that the creature before you is a cat when it’s a border collie. You cannot disagree that you breathe air and be a sane person. You cannot disagree with a fact and be sane. If it’s a fact, there’s no option. Option, opinion, the words are fairly close even. That’s a hint.

Unless you’re a Fox News regular, anyway. Then the phrase “Well, we disagree, because I think dolphins are fish” is just as good as “I think the clause says ‘establishment of intimacy’ ” by all accounts. Reality doesn’t matter, and people don’t understand the difference between what they think, and WHAT IS REAL.

I mourn for the world. I also mourn for the nation, since this has become the standard tactic of the right, to claim reality is not real, to disagree with facts.

Fuck.

From the Moral Orel characters page:

“He was even still breastfed by his mother until he was finally weaned off.”

Other suggested pieces of information:

My keys were lost until I finally found them.

I was hungry until I finally ate.

I was a fetus until I was finally born.

MSNBC runs live all day, based off the eastern feed.

The Ed Show, Hardball, Countdown, Maddow, same time for everybody. This is how most news channels work, really, with repeats later on in the night. And that seems to work fine.

But the Olympics get a tape delay.

On a live network.

The Olympics that are happening right now in Vancouver will not be seen by west coast residents until 3 hours after the events are over on the network that runs everything else live.

What the fuck? Is this a secret plan to keep The Ed Show off of the west coast? Does LA not deserve Dylan Ratigan? The only effect of this delay is that shows which wouldn’t be pre-empted suddenly are, but only for half the country. If they kept to one feed, they’d be able to break in for news and events as needed, and they’d certainly not have to worry about repeating coverage to make up for the separation.

But to hell with that. Tape delay it. Show it live on the east coast, delayed on the west, they decided, for a reason absolutely nobody can figure out.

I’m starting to think NBC just wants to go bankrupt and get it over with, I really am. They’ve got a decent Thursday block, Chuck, Heroes, and Saturday Night Live. The rest of the time is a big festival of “No thanks.” Unless you’re the one person excited for The Marriage Ref or Who Do You Think You Are, then I guess NBC’s doing well.

Maybe NBC is just trying the Bush theory of promotion. You know, Michael Brown fucks up FEMA, gets a Medal of Freedom. Harriet Miers fires US attorneys out of political motivation and calls Bush “the most brilliant man she has ever met”, she gets sent up for a Supreme Court nomination. Jay Leno bombs on primetime but says how great NBC’s programming and sponsors are, gets sent to the Tonight Show.