Random thought

When Congress passed the Federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999 I believe the reason why it was enacted was because they wanted to pass an act with the word "Cybersquatting" in it.

Child Stars

21st century rules for being a child star: Deliver badly written lines with no appreciable acting skills and you must be able to sing and do choreography... check, check and check... good job Camp Rock!

Greetings from the Future

Perhaps I've been out of the loop for the past few years but I just noticed today the growing use of the fist bump as a sign of "Good Luck" to ones associates. This bump between friends has permeated culture and has become popularized by our current president. Even the Ghost Hunters share a bump at the end of a mission. It is my theory that within the next 25 years (Assuming that the Maya calender is indeed wrong and the end of the world doesn't come) the fist bump will indeed replace the handshake as the international form of greeting. Just imagine dignitaries fist bumping. Several business people in their stuffy 3 piece suits on a subway with their briefcase fist bumping each other. A circle bump if you will.

Some might say that the fist bump has become obsolete but as of this moment I am hard pressed to see a greeting that is as superior as that of the fist bump. Join me friends and welcome yourself into the realm of the fist bumpers. I cannot promise that you'll find yourself. I can only promise that you'll be helping to usher in a new era of social networking. A network that has people bumping fists not giving thumbs ups. It truly is the future... roll in it!

Somethings...

Somethings are just made better by the Chipmunks...

I sometimes... wonder at things...

I sometimes wonder at things in an odd floaty way... why are we here... is there life after death... oh and I also wonder about very good jugglers and Palm Pre cellphones...

In reality what I wonder is who thought that this was a good idea? That this advertising strategy would be conducive to selling a crap ton of phones? Sure it looks like the phone has promise as a great smart phone but as I watch this I find this increasingly creepy. This terrible line of commercials is, to me, similar to the five dollar foot-long jingles of Subway. You don't sell products by thinking me a simpleton who loves a good song, nor will you sell me an expensive product by scaring the crap out of me. And oh by the way... who's the carrier of this phone? I would watch it again but I'm afraid she'd assimilate me!

As if to make things much worse the Palm people have decided in their infinite wisdom to keep releasing new commercials they just feel the need not to say anything now. So at the creative meeting they said "Hey everyone loved the last 4 we made now lets just have the pale woman stand and stare at the camera! Then she holds up the phone and gives the camera the faintest of creepy smiles"! To which everyone in the room said "Fantastic". It's like the Snapple slogan room... no one had any good ideas so lets just take the one that is easiest to execute.

In summary you can't substitute a good product in with a terrible idea to sell it. Oh and screw you Palm Pre for giving me nightmares!

Harass a Kitty Day

Today was Harass a Kitty Day. A day wrapped in honoring tradition and is relatively unknown. This is very unfortunate; those that celebrate see it as the best way of playing with their furry feline friends. I for one wish I had a kitty to partake in this growing holiday. So I spent today spreading the good word.

For those of you out their who harass a cat, how did you prepare?

What did you do?

For those of you like me I've provided videos of people and kitties enjoying today.

With a Laser

Cat playing piano wearing clothes

Throw a cat in water

Finally: Dressing your Kitty up

As Harass a Cat day ends just consider all the fun you and your kitty can have with all of the above ideas and more. If you don’t celebrate ask yourself, why? Please consider it as you go through your days for the next year so you are ready next time and remember this isn’t fun just for the kitties.

The hell?

I suppose it's time for me to scrub myself

By some furniture from these people

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while folks. It's just been crazy in Florida. Between the new school thing I'm doing and work and lately the nonstop rain we've been getting I haven't had much time to do much of anything. So here I am and all I have for you is the following clip. I have nothing to say about it that'll do it justice... just watch it and I dare you not to get that tune stuck in your head.

Ponderosa...?

Sometimes you see something that catches you completely off guard. Last night that very instance occurred to me. As I drove to the theater to see Star Trek I noticed a Ponderosa out in the wild. I almost ran into a hobo, I was so confused. I haven't seen a Ponderosa since the early 90's. Yet here one stood, in the middle of one of the busiest roads in Central Florida. I wonder what happened to these proud, majestic, restaurants. I went online to do some research and all that I found was somewhat vague. I watched clips of their commercials and the marketing plan seemed solid. Just take a look:

See? Rock solid. Is that waitress wearing a bib? And what is up with the Alien egg on the plate around 14 seconds into the commercial? Oh... and Star Trek was very good...awesome even. Still, it's a sad day to me when a Ponderosa was more... well, life changing then the movie.

Star Trek Day

It's Star Trek day! I'm celebrating... are you? I've got my Gorn costume ready and I've had my fill of Romulan Ale and Tronya. Lets honor this day with a little song:

Brought to you by the letter...

Consider for a moment the letter Z, won't you? Thank you. The last and very lonely in a line of 26 letters in the English alphabet, you rarely ever give it a though I bet. No... but you really should. If it were not for this tiny letter you would not have a beautiful word such as "azure" or be able to warn of a seizure. So let us all contemplate the letter Z the best way that I know how and that is with a video. Do not enjoy this video... relish it.

Coming off of that truly inspired video we should consider the uses for the letter Z. True words such as "zebra" are fantastic but now is really the time for us to be creative. As of late video game designers have creatively slapped the glorious Z to every game that has been created for a preteen girl. I for one see no issues with that. Facebook pets games have become hip now with that swapping of an S with our friend the Z. After all doesn't the letter S already have a whole slew of three and four letter words that it can have fun with? One group who has put the letter Z to great use is Ubisoft. Imagine Babyz! Go ahead and imagine them right now!

With that last video filling our hearts with relief that the letter Z will not die... nay it thrives I sign off. Again, thank you Ubisoft for not forgetting about the little, lonely, Z.

A Mediocre Movie

What are the chances that a summer blockbuster prequel movie based on a previous movie trilogy, based on a cartoon, based on a series of comic books will be decent? Well using the highly anticipated X-Men Origins: Wolverine as a guide might cause one to be alarmed. You see Wolverine isn't a horrible movie but it's far from the multimillion dollar blockbuster we were promised.

If you can't tell the Low Standards offices (Alex and I)took an early day showing of X-Men Origins:Wolverine, the first of two confirmed origins tails... I know... queue sarcastic excitement. The two of us went into this with two varying expectations for this movie. Personally, I was burned by X3, the last excuse of an X-Men movie, and I was not putting a lot into the trailers or the build up. Needless to say my standards for this movie were way down. Alex, on the other hand, was expecting this to be a fantastic movie.

In the end this movie disappointed us both, me less so than Alex who was visibly irritated by the lack of excitement in this movie. Outside of the thin plot (that felt like I was watching Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side... again), sloppy execution of said plot and the excessive amounts of mutants that served no purpose, this movie just was not fun. Perhaps it was the mutant mania this movie suffered from or the sloppy plot execution... no, no, no... I take back what I was about to say before I say it. This movie just revels in it's messiness and bleak outlook on this character. I don't need a brooding baby that screams when it's made and then cries when it's readily available supply of breasts are taken away. This is what Hollywood does now and it doesn't look like the trend is going away any time soon. One positive though: this movie had some color in it not the soul crushing grey, brown, red, orange, or blue color pallet throughout... yes I'm talking to you 30 days of Night!

To give you a better idea of what we saw today, we at Low Standards, always excited to bring you quality, have procured an exclusive clip of X-Men Origins Wolverine. In this clip Wolverine finds himself in a fight with the deadly Sabretooth. Please enjoy.

Yes, I know, not at all as exciting as we hoped it would be either. This is how the entire movie feels. In short: save your money.

More Silence, Less of This

This is what makes the internet so vital to the future of mankind.

Squirrels Again...

More on squirrels...

... that is all.

Squirrels

On the way to work today I think I may have run over a squirrel with my car. Isn't it the law of nature: if you see a squirrel don't swerve your car? Well while I'm determining the extent of my grief for this squirrel incident please enjoy this clip on how to make a Squirrel Melt.

Soulja Boy's Alleged Plagiarism?

A celebrity scandal has surfaced. Rap artist "Soulja" Boy has been caught allegedly stealing unauthorized music from another musical group to make his hit song "Turn My Swag On".

No comment was given when we contacted Mr. Boy, but it is believed his publicist will release a statement in the coming days.

As for the artists in question they have declined to speak on the nature of this rumor, but reporters here at the LSP Blog have dug up the original video that "Soulja" Boy sampled off of. We will post it here below so you can compare.

Here is "Soulja" Boy's video that has been called into question.

Here is the recently surfaced video he has been accused of sampling illegally from. Please compare (this works best when both videos are played at the same time):

Compelling I know, but again this should be treated as pure rumor and speculation for the time being. Please stay glued to this site and we will post news as soon as it becomes available

A Magic Update

Whoa! The Magic won game 2 of the Playoffs. I'm not going to lie to you... I'm shocked.

I'm just too damn tired...

As I drove home today from yet another extended and excruciatingly long day at work and the added hour at the gym it dawned on me that I had not been home for the better part of thirteen hours. Maybe it is just me complaining but I'm just wondering if everyone else feels a little bit hollow from their daily life's routine. Perhaps I'm not complaining about the routine but more the fact that by the time I get home I'm ready to just collapse on the couch leaving me with very little drive to do much else. In this economy one does not always have the luxury to choose their schedule and their job. I think it is just a good thing to have money flowing in. So I'm not complaining about the work hours, I think. The drive makes me crazy two hours everyday in heavy Florida traffic... this is definitely something that needs to change in my life. Don't even let me go off on my workout regimen. Just so many factors that make me so tired everyday.

I guess in short what I'm truly tired of is putting up with those damned Five Dollar Foot Long commercials. How desperate have those people become? As Quiznos continues to encroach on Subway's territory they have no clue how to combat it and are swatting back like Microsoft vs. Apple just not as interesting. I mean software competition benefits me by reducing computer prices. Sub competition means I get a slightly cheaper crappy sandwich and more elaborately annoying commercials about things that do not effect life in any way shape or form. It is true that the bread, not the meat, makes the sandwich but neither commercial really focuses on the importance of bread... if it's subway, watch out for the falling Broadway musical about the five dollar twenty-four inch foot long that will pound you mercilessly with it's blunt cry for help. So stop it now guys... I hate you for what you're doing and what I know you will do.

Here is a typical Quiznos Commercial.

And here is a Subway Commercial combating the above commercial.

Makes you think don't it?

One final thing folks: Watch Chuck Mondays at 8p or on Hulu.com. This is my show and it's currently on the chopping block for a new season in replacement for more crap programming that is similar to all the other shows on TV. Chuck deserves a Season 3. So go out there and watch it if you haven't already seen it. You won't regret it.

Are you the Ram?!

Just a small piece of the devil to get you through your day!

Magical Disappointment

After passing up the Orlando Magic for the better part of 12 years I decided to take a chance on them today. Hey, what can I say they are in the play offs and I've heard some encouraging things. The first three quarters were proving all those stories of the bigger, badder, Magic. They were up 18 points at the end of the third quarter.

So, what happened. They lost by two points. My goodness I am at a loss for words. My disappointment at their performance in the last quarter just astonished me. It was a fun game don't get me wrong, but the Magic demonstrated great suck here. If the game was close them loosing would not have been that bad for me, yet it was not close. They could not maintain a lead that large, they choked. And for this I am disappointed.

I am not saying I won't be watching the rest of the play off games that the Magic play in, because for as much as I was let down it was fun to watch. That is all that really matters in the long run. So even if they do not make it past the first round I can at least say I watched it and my interest has been piqued by this Magic team. Even though they did not win by a landslide they do represent the old Magic team that I once loved to watch, because that old team choked in the end as well, but I supported them to the last. So I will support this team to the end as well.

I will say one thing that did not disappoint me are the Cheerleaders. They are much better then I remember them. So keep tapping that sexy talent pool Orlando.

Please to meet Bottle Monster

At work sometimes it's hard to make friends. In times like these I make my own friends the good old fashion way: with sticky notes and a bottle of water. Introducing Water Bottle Monster!








He also acts as the Tech Pubs receptionist... he's so helpful

Welcome us again and Spock lives!

It’s been a while yet here I am blogging again. I know you don’t care but still I bust out with new words like a wordsmith. Some things have changed while I’ve been away. Firstly, the website has changed names. No longer is this my personal blog… I’m hoping that changing this factor will actually cause some people to follow this blog. From this point forward I will be blogging under my new found company name: Low Standards Productions. With the help of my buddy Alex, who I hope will be contributing to this blog eventually; we’ve decided to develop this company to entertain us. This is our mantra: Us first you last. At this moment in time we’re working on several forms of entertainment which includes anything from horror comedy movies to simple flash games. Within the year we hope to have a full blown website that you can visit. For the moment you’ve got this… oh and you’ll like this. For your immediate gratification I’m working on getting a podcast up and running of Alex and I talking about nothing important… which is basically what we’re always going to do. Stay tuned for that.

Changing topics on you abruptly: I met Spock and Commander Riker yesterday! Two very nice people, my god I’m still excited about the whole thing. True I paid money to talk to them for thirty seconds up close but it was worth it. Both of them were very personable and a bit quieter then I was expecting. That convention was packed, toys and girls everywhere. Yet when the stars came out to play I lost control of myself and just said “fuck the toys” I want an autograph. So after only 3 hours at FX show convention we left… truly that’s all the excitement we needed. If I stayed any longer I would have spent even more money. Besides I couldn’t top my day any better… besides having people coming up to me and commenting on my Achmed the Dead Terrorist shirt.

Good times. I can’t wait for the next excuse to nerd out in public.

Thanks Tomb Raider…

I just got done with Tomb Raider: Legend this very moment. When I say “done” I don’t necessarily mean “finished.” You see it’s not that this game is bad it just falls in the same category so many other games fall into from the past: Fun for three hours followed by the feeling of doing this before three hours ago and then the game decides it wants to ramp up the frustration level because maybe that would be fun. Sure this kind of masochistic game play might be fun for some but for most it’s an excuse to stop playing and all too often reminds the player that they’re playing a game. Mechanics start to rear their ugly heads, pretty soon you see how the game limits you and you stop enjoying the game and just want to move on to the next level to get the game over with. Unfortunately in a game such as this the difficulty will often make you want to execute bloody murder on your controller and live out your youth as you scream at it “Can’t we just move on?” Today I reached this level on Tomb Raider. The story is pretty good for this series but man after the same fight with a hydra of some sort the game became a chore I no longer had any want to continue. All the fun I had days before turned into loathing. Bugs made the hydra even harder to fight and it wasn’t a factor of good Artificial Intelligence just poor programming. I felt as if I had wasted 5 hours of my life and 2 weeks of my gamefly subscription that I could have been enjoying with a different game. What is it about game designers that make them feel as if insanely unfair challenges are what gamers above the age of 10 want? With all the fun this game could have been and the story I now feel as if I’m missing out on I just wish someone would have taken another pass at levels like these and realized that the days of an unfair game are no longer accepted as fun. So thank you Tomb Raider: Legend for reminding me what a good game is and that I shouldn’t have to put up with the abuse of my gaming happiness due to bad game design. Thank you and I hope you get it right eventually….

Why Bother?

What is it about blogging that is so appealing to those who do it?

I’ve given it a bit of thought today while trying to consider what it is I really wanted to discuss. During those moments I couldn’t escape the fact that perhaps I’m just not a blogger even if there was a piece of me that really wanted to do it. To write something entertaining about what has been on my mind since last I spoke to my adoring zero fans. It dawns upon me that perhaps I haven’t really had much of substance in my mind to talk about. Random ideas of television and movies, upcoming games and experiences with work all interest me, but is this something that would engage someone that doesn’t know me. Would it even make sense to those that do know me? The answer I kept coming back to was a pretty definitive: probably not.

So I came to the thought: why do I want to do this so badly, to the point of stressing myself out. For a moment today I felt like I was in college again trying to justify why the majority of archaeology in the city of Chichen Itza was botched up. Yes, that is a paper I wrote and it did cause many sleepless nights with pen cap in my mouth and a mountain of books collapsed around the bed. I swear there were points during that paper that my, then, girlfriend was going to shove all the books off the bed so she could “sleep.” I digress, this is not the point, but as I wondered about my own ineptitude toward writing about myself I also considered if I was the only one. To this I know I am not, because every day there is some person that goes on and blogs about their experiences in World of Warcraft or Vlogs on YouTube just to complain about other users. This is a never ending cycle of new forms of media allowing people to communicate in new ways.

At its root though, this is still basic communication. It can be more anonymous now but it is still the desire to be heard by a person’s peers and perhaps have positive feedback. In an age of computers and high speed data transfer negative reactions can sometimes be just as effective as positive. So writers go about saying the most ridiculous things, holding the most ludicrous standpoints so that they might be recognized by those they feel are most important, almost like a slight God complex. These writers could be considered a pest on the internet stage but they are creating the feedback that they desire and always end up with followers that will happily ridicule them.

To continue with this thought I eventually; came to another revelation about bloggers: the majority of them are terrible writers. This type of forum is an open platform and allows any and all to publish their thoughts no matter how poorly articulated. As a personal thought I would hate to fall into this category but I realize I do not fall into the category of a professional writer or even blogger for that matter. This kind of writing skill comes from experience and practice. Without life experience what you write might not be at all interesting, it is always easier to write about what you know then writing a lot about something you know nothing about. The second factor in good blogging would be to consistently write. Good experience goes only so far if you cannot articulate it in an entertaining way that keeps your audience reading.

After all this thinking I came to realize I had a topic that I wanted to talk about, that I wanted input on. I wonder if there are other factors that go into good blogging that I might not have covered in my process. Moving forward, becoming more at ease with blogging, I will continue to practice and try to make my life more interesting in the hopes that perhaps someone will care enough to finish these extremely long posts to the end.

Please Welcome Me and Pardon Me Guitar Hero

Today is a momentous day for me (and it should be for you as well) for I have bent over and done something I said I would never do. Nothing nasty I assure you. I have started a blog of which no one will read. Yet, it does make me feel important. For those of you two people who might read this I apologize ahead of time for my improper use of commas and ellipses. I tend to be very random and ramble. So please if you have any thoughts of my writing please comment.

From time to time I will be on here. I will try to post as frequently as I have something of substance to say. Mostly I will discuss things of interest to myself and the many humorous things I might see from day to day. So since nothing really happens to a normal guy from Orlando I guess I will be talking about gaming quite frequently.

A quick back story on myself: I have graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology and work fulltime as a “Human Resources Receptionist”. I tend not to think of myself as a receptionist though… what is left of my manliness seems to melt away further every time I say it out loud. So for the present I refer to myself as “Human Resources” that seems to be general enough that people who ask are typically satisfied with said answer. I love the education I have but wish there was some way into spinning that into a career in the video game industry. After a failed attempt to go back to school for a Digital Media degree I decided to just focus on playing the games in an effort to at least feel closer to the industry.

Enough about my personal history, enough time for me to blab about myself later, I needed to discuss my growing distaste of Guitar Hero. I bought GH World Tour about two months ago to my excitement I finally devoted the money to the entire band set because my Rock Band drums had died and so had my guitars from repeated use. Now was the time to move on to the new sets of instruments. When I opened that box it was like Christmas had come early. After construction of the instruments I turned on the drums, synced everything, and went into the game just to find out that the drums didn’t work out of the box. Luckily everything else did but the idea that I wouldn’t be able to play the one instrument I bought the whole pack for quite frankly rubbed me the wrong way. Calling the customer support line I had no joy, I was told by the woman (who had never even seen the kit) that I would need to send it back in the original packaging.

After about two weeks of playing the great Guitar portion of the game I finally received the drum set and I’ve been less than enthusiastic by the way the drum is set up. From time to time it was registering double taps for the pads. I can live with a bit of these issues and did until today: the drum set did the same thing as it did the first night I bought it. Perhaps I’m just a bit more in love with Rock Band these days but I’ve come to the end of my rope with this one. I have no problem with the rest of this game at least when it comes to the actual guitar parts but everything new they implemented in this edition just seems a bit too little too late. The singing portions don’t seem to be anything more than a low volume version of your voice over the slightly louder version of the original artist. Sure you can increase the microphone volume but it never seems like it’s you who is singing more like a back up vocal. The bass guitar is good enough but the touch pad at the lower end of the neck seems like a fun hindrance then anything. To be fair I was never very fond of the lower portion of the guitar neck on Rock Band either. Perhaps this is just an unfortunate side effect of not being able to play a real instrument. Additionally, the song list is just passable with the difficulty spike much better than Guitar Hero 3 but this game feels stale compared to competition.

Now I realize I’m just being harsh right now to this game (and on the first blog post too) but I’m really disappointed with this game. I haven’t had it long enough to finish it fully (and I fully intend to finish it mind you), but this game refuses to let me play with it undisturbed. So pardon me Guitar Hero I will try to be more kind to you in the future, as long as you promise to be gentle with me.