Like: Rock Band

So this is how it went:

A bunch of video game designers were sitting around in their awesomeness and went:

“Hey let’s invent the greatest party game ever!”

“Okay, how about a game where you play simplified musical instruments collectively as a rock band”

“And we can use popular/totally awesome songs!”

“Cool, and we’ll make different difficulties so you can totally show off or if you’ve never played you’d be okay after two tries!”

“Or even play when you’re drunk!”

“Especially if you’re drunk!”

“And we could actually make the drums give you some of the same skills needed to drum”

“Not the guitar though”

“No, not the guitar”

“And you wouldn’t even really have to know the words! Just the basic tune!”

“And we’ll have the vocals real low so people’s awful, awful voices don’t ruin it!”

“And we could actually teach people the value of pitch since it’s the only thing the mic could measure!”

“BAD ASS! LET’S DO IT”

“Dude, be sure Gimme Shelter is one of the songs!”

***

Sure there were 2 versions of guitar hero as the progenitor to this so it was really just the next logical step in the evolution, but I still like this version of the events.

Don’t Like: Defective Coffee Lids (PART II)

I have a temper about the weirdest shit. It rarely, rarely, rarely comes out and it’s almost never directed at humans. Why not humans? Cause I can usually understand the fallacy of human error and chalk it up to individual interest (basically objectivism). No, what usually gets me angry is incredibly stupid stuff like traffic patterns, or in the case of today: THE SAME FUCKING DEFECTIVE COFFEE LID.

This is BS man. I got some coffee (which again, I rarely do) and didn’t even fill it up all the way. I put the lid on. Walked outside. INSTANTLY SPILLING OUT BOTH SIDES OF THE CUP. Luckily, I was smart enough to bring napkins this time to help take care of the mess. I had to pour out a bunch of the coffee out into the trash to even get it mobile. Lo and behold, I get into the elevator and the lid starts spitting out coffee when I’m pretty much perfectly still. My hand continues to burn and I finally get upstairs to my office. I pour more out (i have like 1/2 a cup by now) and finally sit down to drink this thing because I’m tired and desperately need caffeine.

I check to be sure the lid is on extra tight again. I raise it up… instantly spilling out from underneath the lid and onto my jeans.

Needless to say I hurled that fucking cup across my cube. Yes, it was at my trash can and it went in, but coffee is now everywhere. I made a half hearted attempt to clean it up but now it just smells like coffee.

Now this is usually the point where you suspect someone has an anger problem. But like I said, I only do about the weirdest shit. And I don’t even care, cause that coffee lid can totally kiss my ass. How can we not make coffee lids that work?!??!!

So why don’t you analyze me interwebs! ANALYZE THIS!

Don’t Like: Both forms of SPAM

New Rule: From now on, All Future Things Also Named SPAM MUST Be Bad.

Agreed? Agreed.

SPAM sucks balls. It tastes bad. It clogs up emails (despite Gmail’s herculean efforts) and just generally makes me sad.

Don’t Like: That I’m Losing My Moral Compass Playing Grand Theft Auto 4

This game is so freaking awesome. But it’s completely enveloping. As such, I found myself walking down the street yesterday and figuring out the best way to steal the approaching SUV. I also was wondering if I could pick off those bums on the corner with a sniper rifle from here. I wasn’t even realizing it at the time either, I was just so in the world of the game.

Scary stuff.

But like I said, holy crap is this a totally fantastic game.

Don’t Like: The Ooze!

Dammit why isn’t the government doing something about the rise of ooze related incident across the city? My friend was driving home the other day and saw a giant armored snapping turtle bite into a telephone pole. It nearly destroyed his car! I won’t get even get into that giant wolf thing. The ooze is bad folks. We have mutant amphibians and mammals running all over the city causing havoc. It’s not like there could possibly be any vigilantes among the beasts! Damnit, why is no one stopping  and no one is doing anything to stop the evil TGRI company from developing it!? And why are they so freaking careless with it? It seems this dangerous mutating chemical is just falling off of trucks every where and landing on animals! What a crazy world!

What’s next? A talking brain in some devo-esque guy’s stomach?

Like: Hulu

PREPARE TO WASTE YOUR LIFE:

www.hulu.com

Don’t Like: The Mutual Contempt and Destructive Relationship Between IT Workers and Office Executives.

There is a palpable dynamic in the modern workplace. It’s one I do not enjoy. IT Workers and Office Executives… they freakin’ hate each other. Sadly, I happen to think it is a marginally serious problem.

The dystopic relationship goes something like this: Office Worker (who gets paid a lot more) calls in IT Worker (paid a lot less) to fix problem which may or may not be easily fixable. IT Worker already has wayyyy too much on their plate and is forced into having to deal with situation based on 1) scale of emergency and 2) importance of the requester. So IT Worker comes up to fix (usually too late if it’s an emergency cause they had to deal with some other BS). They attempt to fix and they’re probably the wrong person to be helping anyway. If the problem is seriously complicated the Office Worker gets upset and doesn’t know why the IT Worker can’t just click some button and fix it. Then Hatred grows.

There’s a couple of factors involved in all this. Most Office Workers don’t understand dick about computers or programming and just how freaking hard it is. They often treat IT Workers as inferiors and interpret the tinkering nature with which computers are dealt with as a sign of their lack of intelligence. And that, my friends, is BS. IT Workers are declared lazy and stupid because one often doesn’t understand what they are doing.

Now, that being said, IT Workers (I’m trying to be both fair and accurate here) aren’t exactly the greatest programmers or technicians in the world. This isn’t meant to be a vicious shot, it’s just a reality, since most of the brightest of their people go into different fields and stay away from the IT World. With that, they deal with impatient assholes all day who want them to finish their project. This leads to bitterness and disaffectedness. Which means that many IT Workers who have been there for a while are beaten down, tired and sloppy. And thus the workers make assumptions. Worse, they regard the office workers as inferior idiots who don’t know anything.

So… two groups who have to work together… and they think the opposite groups are idiots. It’s a really, really shitty dynamic folks and all the disruption that results from it could be fixed if people just regarded one another with a little more respect. That’s all.

Don’t Like: HALO online players

So this is where the Asshats of the world end up.  First off, Halo is fantastic. It’s the perfect shooter with great balance and weapons and gameplay. There’s so little cheapness to it (except double beatdowns, lame). I was so excited to get my XBox Live up and running. The gameplay experience itself has been fantastic, completely competitive and exhilarating. The funny part is the people I encounter while playing. See I have a microphone which is awesome for strategy purposes, but never in my life have I heard such a brainless array of people. They seem to be young, homophobic, and contrarian. Everything is “fag!” “that’s so gay!” “fuck you faggot!” “I have a big penis!” Those are all real quotes and you hear them every time you play. The best part about the last quote is it’s usually being said by 10 year olds. It’s just best to respond with “NO, YOU DON’T’ and then assassinate them with the butt end of your assault rifle.

At least the asshats are good at Halo.

ROCK ON.

Don’t Like: Formatting Your New Computer

I’m doing this as of the moment at work. It’s insanely tedious and I feel like I can do nothing effecient. Also my new keyboard is about 3 rows off where my hands are normally placed. I’ve been typing numbers and F12s in place of words. The most annoying part is that you figured out how to format correctly on all the old programs. It took years of using the computer but you did it. Now, the formatting options are all in different areas. My outlook preferences aren’t in “email options” at any level but now under “reading pane”. And then a million other examples like this.

I’m going to go track down my old keyboard now. h7F5!