Recently in Rants Category
If you spend any time watching movies, then you've seen the graphic above. It's the Film Ratings Board's image that shows up in front of all trailers. That's why I'm writing. See the text there? "The following preview has been approved for all audiences by the Motion Pictures Association of America". I have a few points to raise about that.
1) The implication of this rating is that there are trailers they would NOT approve for all audiences. When was the last time you saw one of those? Do they have a "red" screen they put up there for those? Is there an actual ratings system for movie trailers on their own? And if you did get a trailer that was not approved for audiences, would we ever actually see one in the theaters? Oh no, Little Jimmy can't see this, let's run out of the theatre in 3 seconds so he won't see anything. I'm sure my "Little Jimmy" remark is why we don't see anything else in theatres, but are there really trailers that are not approved for everyone?
2) I submit that a lot of the stuff in trailers is NOT valid material for "all audiences". Now granted, I know trailers tend to be skewed towards the movie they're in front of. You're not about to see a Blue's Clues movie trailer in front of say "American Zombie". Likewise you won't see a trailer for Rambo in front of "Horton Hears a Who". Still, there are a lot of things in these trailers that are not valid material for all ages, thank you very much. There's a current trailer for a movie called "Boarding Gate" that oepned last week. The trailer is marked with the "approved for everyone" green thing. It does say the movie is "R", but the TRAILER itself is approved for "all audiences". Now it's fairly tame as these things go, but there is still a decent amount of things in there I don't want my kid seeing. Something that really bugs me are trailers like "Diary of the Dead", whose trailers are marked for "all audiences", but are totally NOT for "all audiences". I'm not against the movie itself, just the marking of the trailers.
I wonder which Soccer Mom will eventually raise a stink about "Little Johnny" seeing a trailer for Diary of Dead and making a big enough stink to get the concept of "for all audiences" addressed on trailers. It bugs me, but I'm not the crusader. I just like to complain about things sometimes. :)
It does seem odd/wrong/whatever though. Anyone ever seen a trailer without that "for all audiences", or some other wording saying the trailer IS NOT for all?
As the two or three of you who regularly read this blog might remember, back in February of 2007, I had a problem where my original Xbox 360 died. My original Xbox 360 was bought on January 1, 2006, and lasted until February 3, 2007. At that time, I had been just out of warranty, so when it died, I was going to have to pay $129 (plus tax and shipping) to repair the thing. I've been through this story already, if you read the link above, you can check out my original nightmare.
So, OK - fast forward to today. It's March 8, 2008. My second Xbox 360 has been going fine, although I've noticed as of the last week or so that when I turn it off, it was making an odd grinding sound. Nothing that really caused panic, but it was a sound that wasn't there before. So today I'm playing some MLB 2k8. Having fun, and then the wife and daughter went out for awhile. I got on the net for a bit, and came back to play some more. And guess what I saw? Well, given the blog entry's title, it can't be too hard to guess. In fact, I took a picture of it. It's shown to the right. This isn't a red ring picture glommed off the net, I just took this myself.
I have all the major consoles from "this generation". I have an Xbox 360, a Nintendo Wii, and a Sony Playstation 3. Of the three, I've had the 360 the longest (although not obviously the same actual unit). It's got the most polished interface, the biggest library, and a host of other things Microsoft will tell you about their console. It also has a horrendously godawful hardware failure rate due to what a lot of folks are suspecting is an overall design failure. For the longest time we didn't hear much about it, but not too long ago, there was a story saying that the overall failure rate for the console is 16.5%! Good Lord, that's insane. Most hardware failure rates are a couple of percent. You kind of expect that. It's inevitable. Things break. I get it. But 16/17 percent of all units? No wonder Microsoft had to extend the warranty.
That's the rub with me and my original Xbox 360 unit. That one was manufactured at some point pre-launch of the console in the fall of 2005. I forget the manufacture date of my original unit. This second unit was manufactured in August of 2006. That was right around the time that Microsoft started coming up with some ways to properly combat the problems the units were having, but I didn't get an upgraded unit for the second one. It was one from the original hardware design, before they started upgrading things to deal with the original design problems. In July of 2007, they extended the warranty for all units to three years with the red rings problem, and refunded repair money to those who had paid it. My first one died in the window between the original one year warranty, and when they extended it to three years. So I could have gotten away with it, but I was so mad at the time.. oh well.
Anyway, this new unit has died now too. At first I tried all the junk they have you try when they die (which I've read about enough, and went through once before with my first unit). Unplug the box AND the power supply from the wall. Let them power cycle (the light on the power brick goes out). Plug back in. It actually worked again. However, I knew it was likely temporary, so I turned off the box, and tried again. Three red rings. It's a gonner.
So I first tried the repair stuff on xbox.com - and got an error about my box being not registered, and then when I tried, I got another error on their website. Great. I was really hoping to avoid talking to someone on the line again, as it's generally guys who sound like English is their third language. So it was with some trepidation that I called 1-800-MYXBOX. I got another guy who sounded like I was talking with someone in India again. But this guy wasn't uber hyper, and was talking in a register I could understand. Without going through all of our phone call, I got a repair order put in.
Technically my box is out of warranty, but the three year repair thing covers this, so I don't have to pay anything. As has been documented elsewhere what happens now is that you get an empty box from Microsoft with UPS postage paid on it. You put your 360 console in there, and ship it off. A few weeks after that, you get it back repaired. I've read online that in a lot of cases it's not the same unit. I am hoping that due to the manufacture age of this unit, they don't just repair it, they replace it with one of the newer ones. The newer ones have quieter DVD drives, additional heat sinks, chips that use less power, and generate less heat. That kind of stuff. Hopefully that's what I get.
So now I wait - the empty box should arrive around Wed or Thursday this week or so they said. I now have to wait about three weeks or so to get an Xbox 360 back. I guess this means more time with my Nintendo Wii and my Playstation 3. Despite all the tech problems the 360 has (one of which is the extremely LOUD DVD drive the thing has - the Wii & PS3 are whisper quiet), I enjoy it more than the Wii & the PS3. That's not to say I don't enjoy games on the others - or I wouldn't have them. But the overall experience I think is the best on the 360. When it works.
When my wife suggested that I just buy a new one after my first failure, she did say that if the second one died, that she'd probably put her foot down and say I wasn't going to buy another one. This all has happened while she's out of the house with our daughter at one of my daughter's friends' birthday parties. I can't wait to see the rolling of the eyes (rightfully so) when she returns. :) At least this repair is free. What they tell you is that the repair work is not covered by the rest of the three year warranty, although if this happens a third time, I might be too mad to want another one.
The real tease of all this is that I have a development kit Xbox 360 on my desk at work. Those are nice, but the development kit boxes don't play retail games. Only development stuff. Darnit, otherwise I'd use that to play my games on. Sigh.
So in closing, I have this to say about my second Red ring of Death Xbox 360...
My parents told me about Mr. Common Sense early in my life and told me I would do well to call on him when making decisions. It seems he was always around in my early years but less and less as time passed by.
Today I read his obituary. Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance, for Common Sense has served us all so well for so many generations.
An Obituary for Common Sense
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was Since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Aspirin, sun lotion or a sticky plaster to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know my Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm a Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.
If you still remember him, pass this on.
Today is the launch of Apple's iPhone. It's funny, two guys from my office today are heading over to a store not too far from our office to try and get one later this afternoon. There's iPhone stories all over the web today. But this one irked me. Check this:
Movie stars, who are accustomed to receiving the latest hot gadget in advance of its release in the hope that they'll be photographed with it, have been out of luck when it comes to landing Apple's new iPhone, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday). Famed publicist Liz Rosenberg, whose clients include Madonna, Liza Minnelli, and Cher, told the newspaper that she had been unsuccessful trying to get an iPhone for Cher. "Doesn't winning Oscars, Grammys and Emmys entitle her to move to the front of the line?" she asked. But the Times report also indicated that Steve Wozniak, who cofounded Apple with Steve Jobs, was planning to queue up in front of an Apple store in San Jose, CA at 4:00 a.m. today in order to get one. (He did say that Jobs had offered to send him one but that it wouldn't arrive until Saturday. "This is more a celebration," he said.)
Doesn't winning Oscars, Grammys and Emmys entitle her to move to the front of the line?"
Excuse me? You make more money in a year than I'll probably see in my lifetime. Get to the back of the line, you freeloading B-list celebrity. Get out there and buy one like everyone else. In fact, buy me one. You know you can afford it. Besides, you can afford to pay some kid $100 to stand in line for you. Yeesh!
Well, it certainly seems like rock bottom. If it's not, then yikes. Britney Spears has been the subject of a lot of media attention lately. Pretty much all of it for bad things that have happened in her life. Read something this morning I liked.
I don't watch the show, but Craig Ferguson, the host of "The Late Late Show," said he has chosen not to make jokes at her expense. "For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it," he told viewers Monday. "It should be about attacking the powerful - the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards - going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."
He's absolutely right. Unfortunately, words like that will get ignored by us, unfortunately.
Saturday is the day my wife works, and Daddy gets to take care of Samantha. As that's gone on awhile now, I've gotten better at it, and I find true enjoyment at spending time with my daughter, and watching her grow up right in front of me. Still, I do enjoy nap time. :) So today I made myself some lunch and sat down to play a couple of hands of Uno on Xbox Live before I had to get to some chores, and what do I see? The Red Ring of Death on the front of my Xbox 360. Ugh.
Everything I've read about this says that it's bad. If you see it, forget it, your system is dead. So I hop on Google, do a search for that, and find a decent article on TeamXbox.com about the ring of death. They offered a few suggestions, as some of the flashing light "codes" indicate something stupid, like loose wires. None of that worked, so I rather dejectedly called Xbox support. After wading through a really dumb computer front end (that tried to act like a person), I finally got a customer service agent. I think I liked the dumb computer voice first.
I knew I was in trouble right away, as I started the phone call with "Red Ring of Death time", to which I got the response of "Excuse me? What is that?" Like an Xbox Customer Service rep has never heard that term before. This is not going to be good at all. It was obvious Mr. Agent was reading off a script. Now that I can deal with, even if I don't like it when I get it. But to make matters worse, this guy was acting like he was the host of a local morning talk show. You know the kind, all hyped up on java. Anyway, anytime anything even remotely negative came out of his mouth, he'd follow it up with - DON'T WORRY! Excuse me? What kind of nonsense is this? I work at a games company, I bet you I'd probably spent more time playing my 360 than he did. It was seriously annoying, but given I needed my 360 fixed, I stuck with it for awhile. To make matters worse, this guy had a very thick foreign accent, and spoke way too fast. It was difficult to understand him in the first place. Then he gave me some twaddle about my address on file being in India. Nevermind he had the street address, city, and zip code right. The state said India for some reason. Oh boy - my mind was instantly transported to this cartoon about tech support people which makes me laugh every time.
The guy eventually said that I qualified for a warranty repair (which he later said was an out of warranty repair), and told me it would cost $129 to repair my 360. BUT DON'T WORRY - We'll pay for the shipping. You cheap bastards, you should pay for the repair too! I had a 2005 model 360, one of the first made (the manufacture date on the back said Sep 2005). So I had just about enough of his happy "Don't Worry" crap, and said "Excuse me? $129 to repair this? I was told that you guys were fixing all 2005 model 360's for free - what's this $129 charge"? I deviated from script, so I think he didn't quite know how to respond - I didn't swear at him, but I was obviously sounding agitated. He repeated the line, said something about offering me a case number, which at this point I was seriously mad, and probably wasn't properly listening to him. I got one more "Don't worry", and down went the receiver. Jackass. I don't want to hear this "Don't worry" garbage. I almost said "Would you stop sayign that, and just talk to me?" I didn't, it probably wouldn't have helped anything anyway. I mostly hung up because I couldn't take it anymore, but I also decided I should get off the line before I said something which would cause him to hang up on me, and probably enter it into my records as "pain in the ass customer".
The kicker is that my warranty expired just about 30 days ago. Lovely. Additionally, the repair center is in Texas, so I would have been charged sales tax on that $129 repair fee.
So I cooled off for awhile, and when Lynn came home from work we talked about it a bit. Told her all of what happened above, and she actually brought up the concept of getting a totally new one, when I said that the one I'd get back would be a refurbished model. I hate refurbs, you never know what problem is hidden underneath there. Yeah, they "fixed it", but something happened to that unit to cause it to need to be refurbished. Never like that, feels like I'm buying a used car. I originally bought a Core system 360, because I was impatient, and didn't want to wait until I could find a full system. I got mine on January 1, 2006, and full 360 systems were hard to find then. So I have all the extra stuff (hard drive, headphone, wireless controller, remote, etc) that you would need to upgrade a core system into a full system already. We figure that the difference between "repairing" my current 360, and getting a used/refurb model is about $150. That $150 would buy me a new unit, with a more recent manufacture date (one would expect, given the supply problems 13 months ago), as well as a new full warranty, and some piece of mind. Yeah, I probably could save a few bucks, but we talked about it, and decided this is the way to go.
So tonight I ordered a new Xbox 360 Core system, it'll get here Wedneday, ordered from Amazon.com, and as I belong to their Prime program, I get free two day shipping. No tax either, which is nice. But I'm a) annoyed that I have to even go through this at all, and b) for the doofus I got on the customer support line. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
The only real positive to this is that the original system which is now a brick was one I never paid for in the first place - it was a Christmas present from my company back in Christmas 2005. So I'm not "double paying". I might have to look into an extended warranty, need to see how much Microsoft charges for that. Oh, and I know the 360 Hard Drive is still working, so I won't lose all my save games and downloads and things like that. That is good.
UPDATE Mon Feb 5: I was seriously contemplating recreating the copier scene from Office Space with my dead 360 unit. When I mentioned that to a co-worker up here at my office, I was told to go look at Ebay, so I looked there for broken Xbox 360, and wow! Found out people are getting in the neighborhood of $100 for dead, non functional 360 units. That rather stunned me, and I decided to go that route, so tonight when I get home from work, I will list my dead 360 on Ebay, and use that money against the credit card bill for buying a new 360 core. That makes this a little more palatable. I'm still not happy about all this, but given the money for the repair is a wash, and then add this $100 to the mix, and then I'm probably paying in the neighborhood of $60 to receive a totally new unit, as opposed to a refurbished one.
You'd never actually want to do that, but that's what someone is doing to Jimi Hendrix. The best way to honor one of our best all time guitarists is to name some sort of energy drink after him, isn't it? I mean why not dig up his corpse, and set what's left on fire? Wouldn't that be just as honorable?
Here's the whole story. Sigh.
Once again, the fact that the United States has its collective head up its ass over the issue of sexuality comes up again, and has made me want to rant about it. This time it raises it's ugly head in the form of the August 2006 issue of the free magazine Baby Talk.
The cover story is about breastfeeding. They chose what I felt to be a totally appropriate subject, that of a baby breastfeeding. Check out some of these quotes from an AP news story I read on the subject.
"I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine,""I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table."
Several readers said they were "embarrassed" or "offended" by the Babytalk photo
"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," the mother of a four-month-old said.
Another reader said she was "horrified" when she received the magazine and hoped that her husband hadn't laid eyes on it.
Excuse me? To these women who are complaining about this.. Uh, what the hell do you think your breasts were designed for? This is their designated function. What the hell are you complaing about? Breastfeeding is about the most natural thing a woman can do with her body (other than actual childbirth). This is a thing to be celebrated, not shunned. Come on people, get a grip. I don't see you people complaining about things like this in the public. These pics are meant for titillation's sake. Not actual breastfeeding. At least the Britney Spears pic is a "motherhood" thing - which means.. Uh, oh. She could be breastfeeding later on - HIDE THE KIDS!
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| Christina Aguilera shopping in public | Pam Anderson in a PETA protest window display |
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| OH NO! A naked pregnant Britney Spears! | Lindsay Lohan dressing slutty in public |
Oh, and to the woman who was saying her husband was uncomfortable.. the only reason was because YOU were in the room. Trust me - men are never uncomfortable at looking at breasts. What a collective bunch of twonks these complainers are. I suspect these people who are complaining about half of the side of a breast on the front of a magazine are the same kind of people who complained about this:
So, if you're like me, in honor of all these people complaining, support your local women's health clinics and support breastfeeding. It's about the best thing a woman can do for her child. Women should get MORE support for wanting to breastfeed, not less - and certainly not puritanical middle aged women from Kansas giving people who try and push the issue any crap. These complainers should just go back to the hole they came from and just shut the hell up. Nobody with half a brain cell wants to hear this kind of nonsese. Immerse them in some of the European cultures - their heads would probably explode.
If you'd like to read more about breastfeeding, here's a few links for you:
- Google Image Search on breastfeeding
- Wikipedia entry on breastfeeding
- The Beauty of breastfeeding calendar
- The actual article from Baby Talk magazine that goes with the magazine cover image above.
You should also support Baby Talk Magazine. It's free, but you should make sure any new parents you know of get this. At least the bruhaha hasn't scared off the magazine from saying they'd do it again.
Here's the full AP News Story about this issue:
You know one of the casualties of the National Hockey League lockout was their exposure on ESPN. ESPN decided that when Hockey returned that they weren't going to pony up what the NHL wanted, and decided to go without the Coolest Game on Ice. Hockey already suffered from terrible ratings as it was, and the loss of exposure on ESPN (banishing 'em to OLN) won't help that. That's not my point here, really.
If ESPN was worried that Hockey wasn't going to bring in ratings, what do I see tonight advertised on the channel? A friggin Spelling Bee! A spelling bee on ESPN? What is that nonsense? Since when did a spelling bee become somthing worthy of being televised on a national sports channel? I seriously think ESPN is heading down the same road to irrelevancy that MTV is at now.
Are they seriously telling us that they think a spelling bee would bring in more ratings and money than the NHL would? Course they've got their noses so far up Barry Bonds' backside anyway, I can't say I'm completely surprised by this, I guess.
Anyone who knows me knows I can't stand TV shows like American Idol & Survivor (shudder) - waste of airspace, and I get dumber by even writing about them.
Unfortunately, the captain on my bowling team loves American Idol. While ragging on it yet again, I was asked what it would take to get me to watch the show.
My response was "Let me vote the show off the air". I'd watch that episode, for sure. Same goes for Survivor.
Please - let each show vote the other off the air.
It's scary how nonsensical the MPAA is. These people need to go away. I'm not advocating anarchy and no control, but if you read through all of what I link to above, it's scary. Spend some time and read this.
It made me so mad, I can't say anything about it, because every other would would be obscene.
You know, an awful lot of innocent people have died in the Katrina storm. Too many lives were lost. I'm not going to point fingers like the mass media is starting to do now. There's enough of that garbage in our country as it is.
The point I want to make is that a lot of souls are gone now, but total f'in jackasses like this live on. It's too bad storms don't pick out specific people for extermination. Like the moron in the story I linked to. He needs to go. (Originally I had a link to a story on CNN for the jackasses text about how a guy stabbed a baby to death - what the hell is with that shit?)
I know my religion tells me I shouldn't be so hostile about things like this, but sometimes I can't help it - people who go around doing things like that contribute nothing positive to society or humanity and need to die.
I'm driving home from work tonight, and I pull into the usual station I fill up at. I had just gotten my truck washed earlier in the morning, so I didn't need to clean the windows. So I'm just standing there killing a couple of minutes when I noticed that little lcd display on the gas pump.
You know, the one that scrolls by and says "Come inside - coffee - soda - sundries - We now have calling cards!"
Why are these things here? Is there anyone ever in the history of creation who was pumping gas and thought, "You know, I wasn't planning on buying one, but now that I read this little screen I want to go in there and buy a 10x overpriced phone card!"
Honestly - who ever has bought a single thing from these stupid video screens? It's moments like this that remind me of a passage from the book of Carlin..
"Take your average stupid person, and then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"
Joe's line: The stupidity of the American public never ceases to amaze me.
I just read that the Ultimate Electronics store is pulling out of the D/FW area. These guys installed my home theatre system, and I couldn't have been happier with their service. This is a major annoyance to me. This past Christmas I had my eyes on a really good DLP HDTV system, but ended up not doing that (mostly due to $ issues). I figured I'd get it later this year, but I guess I won't be doing that.
Thing is I've never found anyone else who has such good in home installation. I don't want to be left with people like Best Buy and Circuit City. Bleargh! :(
While driving around town the last week or so, I've heard probably the dumbest commercial. There's a guy who gives his woman a present, and it turns out to be that he's named a star (a real one in the sky) after her. The commercial goes on about "Make your special someone feel like a star" or some such crap. "Call the National Star" registry. What a crock.
I've given some lame-ass presents in my life, but a "non present" like that is just beyond comprehension to me. The woman in the ad sounds so totally excited that she "got that". I wonder what the woman who recorded it actually thought.
The stupidity of the American public never ceases to amaze me. To quote George Carlin.. "Take your average person, and realize that half of them are stupider than that".
