Category: Buh?

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Get rich through voting

I’m not talking about getting rich by intellectual leaps and bounds either. This comes from a CNN article about various items that people were on the ballots across the U.S.

Voters weren’t keen about another, more quirky Arizona measure: They defeated a proposal that would have awarded $1 million to a randomly selected voter in each general election. [cnn]

That’s the one item that gets me the most. How sad is it that you have to lure people out to vote by dangling a crap load of cash in front of them? Forget paying attention to the issues because you can be sure as hell that anyone will run to the voting booth to fill in the dot, check the box, complete the arrow, punch the card, hit the button on the touch screen, do the hokey pokey, or however the hell you actually vote in your state, just so they can say that they were close to being a millionaire in the last election.

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Welcome to the world of baseball 2.0

This video report from CNet truly scares me. In case you don’t feel like watching it, I’ll do my best to sum it up.

Cisco demoed new technology to “enhance” your ballpark experience, focusing mostly on the new stadium that is being pushed for the Oakland A’s. Electronic tickets on your cellphone or PDA is alright, but the idea of letting video screens detect you in the proximity of their display and then changing to specifically target you based on what your wireless device says about you is a bit on the tacky side. Of course, it’s all technology meant to get more money out of your pocket.

The other thing that left me not liking what I saw was the concept of using mobile PC’s while watching the game from your seats. Score keeping goes digital, get instant replay as it happens, or get an alert that you were on the fan cam on the scoreboard. You see the picture as well as the many ways that you can purchase the picture, much like going on amusement park rides.

There is something to be said about the simplicity of just enjoying a day at the ballpark, and the last thing that I really want to do is have a whole bunch of gadgets getting in the way. Don’t forget about the dude behind you who just dumped his beer on your mobile PC. The first thing I want to do when it comes to enjoying a baseball game is turning off the rest of the world.

Oh, and don’t think that this is just limited to the ballpark experience. They mention that this is a new concept in the way of enjoying professional sporting events in general. Once again, when I go to GM Place for a Canucks game, I’m all for getting alerts about better seats for a game. After that, I just want to be in my seat and enjoy the atmosphere that is hockey.

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The battle of who could care less

The Killers pointing fingers at Green Day? Say it isn’t so!

The Killers ‘offended’ by Green Day

Brandon Flowers doesn’t want to be an ‘American Idiot’

Brandon Flowers has criticised Green Day for what he sees as their calculated anti-Americanism.

In particular, Flowers singled out the track ‘American Idiot’ and the fact they filmed their DVD ‘Bullet In A Bible’, which features the song, in the UK.

“You have Green Day and ‘American Idiot’. Where do they film their DVD? In England,” The Killers‘ frontman told The Word. “A bunch of kids screaming ‘I don’t want to be an American idiot’ I saw it as a very negative thing towards Americans. It really lit a fire in me.”

Explaining he was offended by the set-up, Flowers added: “You have the right to say what you want to say and what you want to write about, and I’m sure they meant it in the same way that Bruce Springsteen meant ‘Born In The USA’ and it was taken wrongly, but I was really offended when I saw them do that.”

The singer added he felt the DVD was a bit of a a stunt.

“I just thought it was really cheap,” he explained. “To go to a place like England or Germany and sing that song – those kids aren’t taking it the same way that he meant it. And he [Billie Joe Armstrong] knew it.”

The Killers‘ frontman said he believed that his band’s new album ‘Sam’s Town’ is a much better representation of America.

“People need to see that, really, there are the nicest people in the world here!” he declared. “I don’t know if our album makes you realise that. But I hope it’s from a more positive place.” [nme]

It seems like I hear the latest by The Killers every morning when the alarm goes off and the radio in the bathroom gets turned on. Mind you that we don’t own a car, but seems like everytime we are in one, “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus…”

Someone told me something not too long ago that makes a lot of sense and is completely applicable to this situation. The industry does as much as it can to milk every last drop out of an artist that it possibly can.

Even artists with one album can have their own DVD pushed onto the store shelves. You don’t need a long track record to have that live, special edition to hit your local Wal-Mart or Zellers. Two or three albums later, the “best of” whoever and whatever start showing up.

Politics or truly representing what Americans are, it’s all rock and roll. The record execs want to push more of the product as they possibly can. Brew a feud, create a buzz, and launch more ways to increase revenue. Even if there is truth to what is being said, I doubt anything was that well thought out and planned. The thing that probably bothers people more is the fact that they had to pay $40-$60, per ticket, just to get in and see any of these guys.

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Lululemon on Robson Street on Tuesday Night

Lululemon vandals? 1I’m not sure if this is a unique form of new displays for the store or if the place was actually vandalized. I would doubt that a store like this would call themselves “robots” and “sell-outs”, but kudos to Lululemon if they took the guts to actually do this on purpose. Maybe some one else knows what’s going on?

Lululemon vandals? 2The other interesting thing is to look inside the display. The mannequins have boxes on their heads and dollar signs for eyes. If this is indeed the work of vandals, then someone was able to get inside. That’s why I’m kinda wondering if it’s on purpose, but this is too strange to be so.

Apologies on the quality of this pics. Took this with my cellphone.


Edit: Now that I stare at these photos, the more and more it seems that this is a legit display. All of the spray paint makes me miss the “believe” in the middle, with the word “lie” in red. Bravely taking on a stereotype perhaps?

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There needs to be a ban on ignorance

Here we go again.

‘Ban Harry Potter or face more school shootings’

A woman who maintains that the Harry Potter books are an attempt to teach children witchcraft is pushing for the second time to have them banned from school libraries.

Laura Mallory, a mother of four from the Atlanta suburb of Loganville, told a Georgia Board of Education officer that the books by British author J.K. Rowling, sought to indoctrinate children as Wiccans, or practitioners of religious witchcraft.

Referring to the recent rash of deadly assaults at schools, Mallory said books that promote evil – as she claims the Potter ones do – help foster the kind of culture where school shootings happen.

That would not happen if students instead read the Bible, Mallory said. [dailymail]

The article is worth reading the rest of, and so is this one. However, it should go without saying that banning anything is the worst thing that you can do. Banning books from a school library will not solve any situation. The next thing you know, kids will be sneaking away from their parents house to read. Oh the horror!

I was thinking about this a little bit futher today, and there has to be another side to the argument that we’re not getting. My assumption would be that the fact that you can read Harry Potter in the school library and not the Bible would probably be it. Obviously, religious text like that would be banned. Seperation of church and state would stand to reason.

The two publications, in their raw form, are just that. They are books. Their texts take on different meaning across the vast number of societies that make up the world, yet alone a tiny school district in Georgia. Just as you teach a child to read, you can teach a child to help understand that difference between wrong and right, good and bad, selfish and self-less, and so on. No one, and certainly not banning something, will do that any better.

There is also something to be said about stopping at Harry Potter. Do you ban everything by J.R.R. Toilken[wiki]? What about Phillip K. Dick[wiki]? Stephen King[wiki]? Witches and fantasy might lead us down a rabbit hole full of authors that we should wipe from the shelves, simply for telling us stories of the imagination.

When I was 13, I read The Boys From Brazil[wiki]. That freaked me out. Nazis, human cloning, little Hitlers? It was one of those rare book projects for school that I actually recall enjoying, not to mention the amount of times that I shivered from the chills it gave me. Even though the book was of fiction, I still sought to find out if cloning was even possible, which it wasn’t at that time.

And who was this Josef Mengele[wiki] guy that was in this story? There seemed to be more detail there that begged me to find out more, as I have forever been attracted to WWII history. Fact was darker than fiction when I discovered the true tales of that man. The fact is, I was inspired to learn more.

The printed word is a powerful thing. The Bible is a book that society uses to teach a way of life. There are many versions of it. There are also many interpretations of the things written inside. Not everyone takes away the same meaning, nor is it free from violence, corruption, darkness, and tales of evil. Simply saying reading that instead will not solve the problems of gun violence in schools.

I also find it incredibly ironic that a podcast called The Secrets of Harry Potter exists, and that it is created by a catholic priest. As it says on the site, “Fr. Roderick explores themes and symbols in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling.” According to his podcast, The Daily Breakfast, he breaks down this argument of the books being pure evil and examines the connections to christian themes. Maybe Laura Mallory should subscribe.

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Starbucks is going to podcast

I kind of understand the angle they are going for, but for the love of god, why?

Regardless of whether you regard Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX)as an icon of everything good in the corporate world or a harbringer of the apocolaypse, we all have to agree that the coffee company is quite innovative. It comes as no surprise, then, that Starbucks is set to launch a podcast series.

The coffee retailer is rolling out a new “Coffee Conversations” program where the company will provide downloadbable audio on its web site. Starbucks said that the podcasts will cover coffee topics, including home-brewing, specialty coffee, and pairing coffee with foods. [bizpodcasting]

I can’t even joke to say that I’m excited for this. Yes, the idea is innovative. More businesses should consider doing ventures like this to help promote themselves and/or their product.

On the other hand, “coffee topics” by the largest, coffee corporation in the world is another thing. They’ll be able to tell you the best thing you can buy from the display case full of pastries that go along with their menu of drinks. That’s called a “target-cast”; a podcast that is intended to sell you a product.

You can’t throw a brick in downtown Vancouver without hitting a Starbucks. Now you can listen to the podcast while you do it.

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That’s the impression that I get

Living in close quarters with a fellow, Vancouver blogger, aka my wife[miss604], we tend to get the same spam. Take the Matchstick stuff for example. We both got that email and have slick, mobile phones at no charge. And then there is email from this guy, who shall remain nameless.

Hey There,

My name is —– and I’m a Vancouverite trying to get more involved in the
local blogging community.

My blog is —————- and I blog about what I’m passionate about,
Reality TV, Politics and Vancouver, an odd combination, but it seems to work
fairly well, at least so far. I update everyday and usually multiple times, so
my blog isn’t going to get stale anytime soon.

Anyways, as I’m trying to get into the Vancouver blogging scene I was
wondering if there would be anyway to get my site added onto your Blogroll? I
would, of course, be more than happy to add Audihertz to my blogroll as well.

Thanks for taking the time out to read this, let me know if you have any
questions for me. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Rebecca got the same email, with a minor change, of course.

Hey There,

My name is —– and I’m a Vancouverite trying to get more involved in the
local blogging community.

My blog is —————- and I blog about what I’m passionate about,
Reality TV, Politics and Vancouver, an odd combination, but it seems to work
fairly well, at least so far. I update everyday and usually multiple times, so
my blog isn’t going to get stale anytime soon.

Anyways, as I’m trying to get into the Vancouver blogging scene I was
wondering if there would be anyway to get my site added onto your Blogroll? I
would, of course, be more than happy to add Miss 604 to my blogroll as well.

Thanks for taking the time out to read this, let me know if you have any
questions for me. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Now, please don’t think I’m trying to be a snob here because yesterday, the same dude emailed me with this thing about free coffee from Starbucks. Certainly enough, Rebecca got the same thing in her inbox. Yes, I’m all about free stuff. However, I never responded after the first email, but it was something I was considering. I’m thinking twice now that I’ve been told that there is a way to get free coffee by clicking on some link in an email that takes me to said dude’s site.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines “spam”[m-w] as “unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses.” Two people, meaning Rebecca and I, isn’t really a “large number,” but I would have to put this solicitation on the spam side of the fence. And if the guy actually read our blogs, he’d know that she gets a lot more traffic than I do, at least in terms of comments. Our writing is different from each other and is not an important topic to get into right now.

I’ve always found that blogger etiquette is to check out other people’s sites, read them, comment on posts, and create an interactive relationship in that manner. This method makes me tend to believe that this guy might be one of those poser blogs. Just a way to get you there to click on the Google Ads which litter his site. Even if you’re not, then this is the impression that you have given me.

“And for the future? You came on a little strong.“

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You’ve got questions, they’ve got batteries

There is one thing about being laid off from a job, but it’s a whole other story when it comes down to the way it’s done.  Even having Donald Trump give you the news would be better than this.

RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.

Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters got messages Tuesday morning saying: “The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately, your position is one that has been eliminated.”

Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday’s notification on a company intranet site.

Derrick D’Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, said he had never heard of such a large number of terminated employees being notified electronically. He said it could be seen as dehumanizing to employees. [breitbart]

No kidding!  400 people is not that big of a number.  They couldn’t even make the rounds by phone?  Even though I loathe going into a RadioShack[wiki], I feel for the folks that work there.  It’s the Kmart[wiki] of electronics stores, and I have yet to meet some one who doesn’t have a horror story about shopping there.

But an email telling you that you’ve been terminated?  That’s cold.  You’re not an employee.  You’re just a machine with a number, a name, and an email address that gets a paycheck.  Getting fired electronically is like setting an electronic time bomb to go off.   Some one secure the stapler.

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Losing the biggest step for mankind

There is something about this that really bugs me. You would think that some one would have marked these tapes in big, bold letters, but then again, I taped over the VHS my cousin’s first communion with Beavis and Butthead[wiki] during my adolescence days.

NASA no longer knows the whereabouts of the original tapes of man’s first landing on the moon nearly 40 years ago, an official of the US space agency said.

“NASA is searching for the original tapes of the Apollo 11 spacewalk on July 21, 1969,” said Ed Campion, a spokesman for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb.

The tapes record the famous declaration of Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, as he set foot on its surface: “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

The original tapes could be somewhere at the Goddard center or in the archives network of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Campion said. [breitbart]

Where the originals could be? The U.S. Declaration of Independence[wiki] and Constitution[wiki] is protected with bullet proof glass and armed guards. The Enola Gay[wiki] is on display at the Smithsonian[wiki] to showcase the history of the only time nuclear weapons were used in combat, not to mention as a symbol of American military triumphs. Even the plane that the Wright brothers[wiki] used for the first, manned flight in history is there. And yet, no one knows where the original vidoes of man’s first steps on the moon went to?

Doesn’t this bother anyone else? It is one of the greatest achievments that humanity has made since the wheel, fire, or the industrial revolution. This is history that is bigger and more impactual than anything that has come before it. Scientists are looking back to Project Apollo[wiki] today to help future exploration of the Moon and Mars. Talk about a picture perfect version of bureaucracy at its finest.

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Don’t make your sign too confusing

I walk by this place often when heading to the downtown core, and it bugs me a little bit. If you are going to have a sign hanging, make it easy to comprehend through a brief glance. Don’t make me have to stop and sift through the details.

Breakfast All Day on Pender