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Little background on this one: I frequently post to a message board on the topic of game shows. It should surprise none of The Four Of You to learn that often my posts have created some controversy. In this case, some n00b posted a summary of an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, claiming that since it gave out money, it was a game show. I stated simply that he was incorrect. When my authority on such things was questioned, I agreed, and then suggested that most people of reasonable mind would agree with my initial assessment.
So, with that, let’s make Michael Brown of Kentucky famous:
From: Michael Brown Subject: My opinion–Game show related
To: clemon79@comcast.net
Our maybe you’ll tell me it’s not GS related. I would regularly post to the old game show newsgroup, but after all the crap and changeover, I just lurk. Now, to my opinion of many of your comments. Sir, you are an asshole! I just finished the little “yer wrong” posting. Wouldn’t a little kindness be better than this. My God, we only have so long on this earth and I’m not going to waste my time being hateful or reading your hateful crap. Give the guy a break. You don’t have to read his posts. Ignore them and let it go. You can say what you want because your hiding behind a computer. I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t act that way face to face. I can honestly say I’d personally kick your ass if we ever met. So here’s an invitation to the Bowling Green Kentucky UPS main terminal. If you’re ever in town, look up Mike Brown and I’ll open a can of whoop ass and we’ll see how funny your snide comments are after that.
Have a nice evening,
Mike Brown and family
Isn’t that great? This moron now extends the list of people who have threatened me with bodily harm over the Internet to three. AND SIGNS HIS FAMILY’S NAME TO IT AS WELL. I can’t write comedy like this. Never mind the irony of someone using a Yahoo email address accusing me of hiding behind a keyboard.
Anyhow, some would suggest that the better man would just ignore this and let this fellow have his opinion and let that be that. Well, nobody’s ever accused me of being the better man, so here’s the response I sent him:
—– Original Message —–
From: Michael Brown
> Sir, you are an asshole!
Thank you. I’m honored.
> I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t act that way face to face.
I assure you, there is not a thing I say online that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face.
> I can honestly say I’d personally kick your ass if we ever met.
You know, I’d like to say that you’re the first guy to tell me that. You aren’t. And I’m still here, so forgive me while I laugh heartily at your idiotic bravado. :)
> So here’s an invitation to the Bowling Green Kentucky UPS main terminal.
UPS, huh? No wonder those morons can never get a package to me.
> If you’re ever in town, look up Mike Brown
Yeah, and if yer ever in Seattle, feel free to stop by, I’m not a hard man to find. I’ll buy the beer.
> Mike Brown and family
Give my best to your wife and my kid.
God, I hope he responds.
Wayyyy back in 1987, my buddy Dave called me. He had an extra ticket to the Huey Lewis And The News concert at Laguna Seca, and did I wanna go?
Huey? HELL YES I wanted to go! But at 16, one must acquire the permission of one’s parental units before taking on such endeavors. Mom said she was fine with it, as long as Dad was. Well, okay.
Dad said “No.” Didn’t want me exposed to the type of people who go to rock concerts.
AT A FUCKIN’ HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS SHOW. Even today, I don’t think there is a more clean-cut band on the PLANET. Bill Gibson STILL wears a suit behind the drum kit, I think.
I haven’t forgiven him for that one. And the day of the show (yeah, it was a daytime show, too, to boot), Dad sees the footage from the show that gets aired on the local TV news and says “Ya know, I was wrong, I probably should have let you go.”
Thanks, Pops. ‘Preciate it.
So the next summer, I get the same call from my friend Derek. Def Leppard is playing the Shoreline Amphitheater. And let me tell you, at the time I was a Leppard FANATIC. I had received “Hysteria” for my birthday that year, and the tape was already well on its way to being worn out.
Well, seeing as Dad owed me one from the summer before, I didn’t ask this time, I told them I was going, and that was that. I received no argument. :) And it was an incredible show. To this day, Def Leppard is still my absolute favorite band, and “Hysteria” is still the best album in my collection.
And the reason I bring all of this up: Last night, fifteen years (FIFTEEN YEARS!) after that first concert of August 22, 1987, I saw Def Leppard for the fourth time.
And it was amazing. It’s been at least nine years since I last saw them live, and eleven since I last saw them live at an indoor venue. And they are MUCH better indoors. I think it has something to do with the reverb of the building or something. They played ’em all, simple as that, and they played arrangements I’d never heard live before, and it was just incredible. It wasn’t the best show of theirs I’d ever seen (it would be almost impossible to beat the show in Oakland in 1992, when they were in the round, at the top of their game, in all of their laserriffic glory, and I was 30 feet with direct line-of-sight to the stage, over everyone on the floor), but it was a close second.
The thing I most enjoyed, though, was the people who came. Face it, we’re all getting old. A lot of us who listened to Leppard when they owned the world in the late 80’s have kids now. And quite a few of them took their kids to this concert. There was a mom over in the arena bowl seats from me (I was on the floor), who was wearing the trademark Leppard Union Jack shirt, ‘cept it was sequined, and you could tell she’d had it for a while. (If you’ve seen the videos for “Photograph” or “Now”, you know the shirt I mean.) She brought two kids with her, the oldest of which could not have been conceived when “Pyromania” was originally released. And all three of them had a great time. I thought it was the greatest thing. Mom, if yer watching: rock on.
Assuming they make it (and there’s no indication that they won’t, if you can kill off a guitarist and rip the drummer’s arm off, and they still keep going, what would stop them?) to 2005, they will celebrate 25 years together as a band. The Beatles lasted, what, 12? Fifteen, tops?
I shoulda known.
Maybe the Internet side of Comcast is getting their shit together, but the cable side is as hopeless as always.
Today I went on a pilgrimage down to my local Comcast office, for a couple reasons: one, three years of frustration with attempting to order the NHL Center Ice hockey package has made it clear that over-the-phone is not the way to go to insure a successful transaction, and two, because of the nature of Tivo, I’m gonna need a second digital cable box if I’m to watch said hockey while the Tivo records whatever it is it’s gonna record while said hockey is on.
The first part became clear as soon as I got to see it from their point of view: All this time, I’ve received nothing but the telephone equivalent of a blank stare each fall when I call to order Center Ice. I know the reason why, now: nowhere in any of their subscriber software does it ACTUALLY CALL THE PACKAGE “CENTER ICE”, OR IN FACT INCLUDE THE WORD “HOCKEY”! I learned that the “Nhl Full Season” is in fact what I wanted, and we got that squared away without further incident. (Dollars to donuts Opening Night is gonna come and it won’t be working. Again.)
Got my new cable box, too. Got it home, hooked it up, appeared to be fine. Dandy. Figure I’ll put it in my bedroom for now, allow me the luxury of Game Show Network from my bed, and prolly move it out to the living room once the hockey season gets rolling.
Well, tonight, I get in bed, and realize that I hadn’t thought to dial up a digital channel yet. Damn. So I do. And I get the “One Moment Please” screen that three years worth of Comcast fuckin’ up has taught me that they need to fix my box.
So I call. She sends the magic signal to blow out the box. No change. Analog channels, no digital ones. So she tells me to unplug it, let it sit for five minutes, and plug it back in. Should do the trick.
I give it six, ‘cuz I’m a nice guy. Now I get NOTHING. Static even on the analog channels. Toddle out to the living room, check the other box, it’s fine in every respect, digital, analog, it’s all good. Unplug, give it ANOTHER six. Bupkus.
Call BACK Comcast. At this point I’m just trying to get a confirmation that the box is deceased and needs to be swapped out. Silly lady asks me a bunch of questions designed to imply that I don’t know how to hook up a cable box. I’m patient. Prolly ‘cuz it’s late. And ‘cuz I should have seen this coming. She can’t blow out the box ‘cuz the system goes down at this hour. Well, okay.
So I get to call back, ‘cuz they won’t declare the box dead yet. The BEST scenario at this point, I think, is that I get to go out of my way on Monday after work to exchange this box for a new one, which may or may not work. That’s OPTIMUM.
…and in fact, that’s what’s going to happen. Resulting in an errand to either run after work on Monday, or tell ’em I’m gonna be late and go in beforehand. I’m leaning in that direction, actually. Fuckin’ Comcast. I have LITERALLY never made a transaction with this company, either now or when it was AT&T, that has gone right the first time. Monopolies are amazing things.
The 2003-2004 San Jose Sharks season tickets are out, or so I’m told. The marketing slogan for this season is:
“Sharks Hockey: It’ll Swallow You Whole”
Hmph. At any rate, this is a vast improvement on the slogan used when the season ticket renewal packets went out, which read “Somebody’s Gonna Pay For Last Year”.
After last season, what many people don’t know is that the two rejected slogans were:
“Sharks Hockey: It’ll Eat You Up Inside”
and
“Sharks Hockey: It’ll Suck
You Down In One Bite”
(Of course, some have suggested that if the Sharks are going to suck, then it’s good to know in advance that they swallow, too. :))
I haven’t added to this in a while, but the other night I was reminded of a Brush With Fame I had a while back, and it sounded like it would make a neat little piece. So:
Couple years ago a bunch of us were in my car, driving into Seattle (I lived in Bellevue at the time) to catch a Seattle Thunderbirds hockey game. It being Seattle at wintertime, it was a cold rainy night, and this one was particularly stormy.
As I’m getting off of the 520 bridge and preparing for the nasty quick switch across traffic (the arena exit is the very next one, so you get to slide across like six lanes of busy I-5 traffic over a tenth of a mile or so, tops. Fun.), someone sees a guy in a suit standing in the pouring rain next to his clearly diasbled vehicle, and comments “Hey, that looks like Bill Nye, The Science Guy!” We don’t think any more about it, and since faceoff was rapidly approaching, we speed along to the game.
As the game goes on, we’re thinking about it. WAS that Bill Nye, The Science Guy? Naw, couldn’t be. The person who saw him insisted that it looked exactly like him, down to the bow tie. And he _is_ a Seattle local, so it’s not like it’s outside of the realm of possibility.
The next day, we check various and sundry sources, and confirm that the stranded wet motorist was in fact Bill Nye, The Science Guy.
So, long story short, I dissed Bill Nye, The Science Guy, during a moment of automotive distress, in a driving rainstorm, just so I wouldn’t be late to a hockey game. I’m sure there is a special level of Hell waiting for me for that one.
So I’m driving to work this morning, and listening to the radio, as I am wont to do, the program I am listening to is in an ad break, and there are women oohing and aahing over the “free checking” deal their bank is giving them. “How can they do all of this for FREE?” one of them bubbles happily.
Jee-sus. Please tell me the average American isn’t so blind as to how the banking system works. I’m begging you. Lie to me if you have to.
Look, folks: if you are paying any kind of monthly fee whatsoever to a bank for a checking account, you are a DOLT. When you open a checking account, you are essentially letting the bank borrow any money you have in there for as long as you have it in there, for free (in most cases, keep reading), to invest how they see fit, in order to make more money that they get to keep for themselves.
Let me put that another way: I wanna buy some Microsoft stock. So you’re gonna buy it for me, and when the stock goes up, we’ll sell, and you get your money back and I get all of the profits. Sound good? Of course not.
Now, that’s not to say that checking accounts are completely worthless. There is a significant value to having your money represented in a safe computer for instant retrieval rather than keeping a coffee can in your cupboard or stuffing it in your mattress. But, rest assured that the money the bank makes from your free loan more than makes up for whatever it costs them to provide whatever services they provide to you.
“But my bank gives me .25% if I have more than $10,000 in checking!” Ooh! Pinch me! Do you know what kind of RETURN they get from that? They turn that into a 10% or 15% car loan, rest assured, they can afford to give you .25% of that, and it ain’t gonna keep the filet off of their table.
So the next time you’re in a bank opening a new account, and they’re gushing about all of the “free” crap you get, and they kick you that $15 toaster as a “free gift”, remember the $250 KitchenAid mixer you’re putting in the bank executive’s kitchen.
Check this out, particularly the intro:
The 10 Worst Macs Ever Built
Wow. A Mac elitist looking down his nose at other Mac users. Didja know that in the dictionary entry for “Redundant”, it says “See ‘Redundant'”?
I won’t say it, because saying it is the equivalent of walking up to a pissed-off hungry lion, whipping out the private part of your choice, and smacking him across the face with it. So I’ll couch it like this:
Today, Comcast doesn’t suck as much.
Now, I fully realize this can (and probably will) change in the upcoming days. But right now, for once, I’m reasonably gruntled by my Internet provider. (I’m still pissed off over that whole cable thing, though.)
See, today is the day of The Big Switchover, where the absorption of AT&T Broadband by Comcast finally kicked in for the cable modem users, and all of our accounts and associated settings switched over to the Comcast network. And Comcast has been prepping us, harassing users to download this little ticking time bomb that will make the necessary changes in settings for people who phear the Accounts dialogue in Outlook Express, and keeping the information away from those who won’t until today.
Well, this morning, I got the four or five bits of information I needed, reconfigured two of my three computers, and told my DNS provider where to redirect this web site to. And so far, so good. As you can see, the site is up, I’m getting my mail, the forwarding is working well on the old address (and will do so through 2004, I’m told, which is plenty of time to tell all and sundry what my new address is), I can still remote access my home machine from work, and I still have unlimited news service. (I was particularly worried about that last part, but it looks like Comcast is playing it smart and leveraging the assets they got from AT&T. Impressive.) Not bad at all.
And The Four Of You who read this site regularly might notice another little nicety: the ad banners that stunk up the weblog pages are gone! Yep, one of the benefits of this switch is that I can FINALLY publish the weblog directly to the site instead of using Blogger’s hosting service. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great free service and I’m glad they provide it, but when you get web space from your ISP and you’re forced to use something ad-supported ANYHOW ‘cuz someone at the ISP has an irrational hard-on for security, it bugs.) Practical benefit for me: everything in one place, no having to rely on multiple servers. Practical benefit for The Four Of You: the page should load MUCH faster, all of the time.
So while I’m not planning to organize a parade or write a long letter to the Pope, I gotta give ’em props for not making this the horrible pain in the ass they could have.
If they get the cable situation hammered out, I might post that they suck even LESS….
My math teacher my last two years of high school was Wayne Cruzan. Helluva nice guy, he was the kind of teacher who would let you hang out in his classroom during lunch hour (and was cool enough that you wanted to). But he was a great math teacher, too. Gave great notes. You could take a snapshot of the blackboards at the end of the day, and those would be perfectly servicable notes for studying for a test.
I had Mr. Cruzan for Algebra II, and something we called Math Analysis, which was basically a combination of trigonometry and all of the other stuff that doesn’t really fit into algebra or geometry, like sets and sequences and matrices and probabilities and such.
I was just OK at algebra (I’m golden with the basic tenets, but when it comes to trig identities and such, I was too lazy to memorize what needed memorizing, so I skated by with B-‘s), but I was GOOD at Math Analysis. I ended up getting the highest grade in the three Math Analysis classes that year. I even beat out one of the valedictorians. That was satisfying, lemme tell you.
Anyhow, the reason I mention all of this is ‘cuz last night I was talking to someone, and they threw out a probability problem: “You have 11 pennies and 6 quarters in your pocket. You reach into your pocket and pull out a random number of coins. What is the probabilty of those coins totaling 82 cents?”
And immediately my brain started turning. “Okay, the only way to make 82 cents is with seven pennies and three quarters, so first you’d have to pull out ten coins, there’s a 1 in 17 chance of that. 17c10 will tell us how many different sets of 10 we can get, then we need to figure out how many sets of seven pennies there are in 11, and multiply that by the sets of three quarters….”
Anyhow, I won’t bore you with the details. But I was pretty damn surprised to find that 14 years after graduating from high school, I still more or less remembered how to do that problem.
So, Mr. Cruzan, if you’re out there: Thanks.
(If you care, it comes out to (1/17) * ((11c7 * 6c3) / 17c10), which rounds down to 825/41327, or a hair over 1 in 50.)
My TiVo grabbed the first episode of Comedy Central’s foray into that excretable genre known as “reality television”, I’m With Busey last night. I just watched it now.
The concept is that this kid who claims to be a huge fan of Gary Busey’s writes to him to pitch the idea of this show. He can do that now ‘cuz he’s a comedy writer professionally. (Me, I’m keeping my amateur status for Athens.) And, probably because Busey thought it would be fun and a good opportunity to screw with everyone’s heads, he agrees to hang with this kid and let the cameras follow them around.
Now, if this kid were playing the part of a drooling fanboy, and doing his job, this could be a pretty funny show. Thing is, you can tell right off that he’s a better writer than he is an actor, and he’s NOT playing the part, he REALLY IS a drooling fanboy. And that’s more painful to watch than it is funny, because Busey spends his time generally abusing him. The two have no chemistry at all. The half hour didn’t end soon enough.
Clearly, me and my Tivo need to sit down and have a little talk.
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