274 thoughts on “Unshow 81”

  8. Good Grief!

    I’ve just been on the phone with a support rep who was talking so fast I had trouble keeping up with him.
    He was either on speed or had a supervisor behind him with a stopwatch.
    He was quite helpful but the call has left me incredibly tense !

    • Whatdidhesayjustajoewashehelpfulareallofyourquestionsanswereddidhefullysatisfyyourneeds?

      Apparently, this is the morning to be on-hold around Deadpan. If only you could DVR/PVR those calls. Just no PBR.

      We’re just glad to have you back around, EssBee – – please don’t feel like you need to apologize for taking time away.

      OK, I slipped past the guards to post this one, but it may take some doing to post again today. Ta.

  11. Damn Americans.

    Trained me to say DVR. I was talking to my rep about adding a hard drive and he had no idea what I was talking about. I forgot, we say PVR (personal video recorder) here.

    I blame you guys and my play by plays.

  20. I just finished the first John Scalzi novel (Old Man’s War) and enjoyed it. I LOVED book 1 within the novel, and liked ok the rest of the book, which was the war part.

    I have begun, but JUST, Stephen King’s 11.22.63. It’s a door stopper – just the way I like em.

    • I’m still stuck on older xbox multiplay games. But I am all atwitter about Dragon’s Lair making it to 360. It uses almost exclusively the original animation.

      • Had it on the phone for a while now. I was bloody useless at the original game (and the original game mode on the phone). But with the move guide and infinite lives I finally got to see all the animations.

  45. Oh, and for Amy – Apple frequently runs specials on refurbed equipment. Stock varies. I picked up a fourth gen 32GB touch. Those were the biggest they had ad the time (and the same size as I had). I see now they have 64GB ones as well.

    http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod/ipod_touch

    Aside from the packaging, you’d never know it wasn’t a new unit. They give them fresh cases all ready for you to add your own scratches to.

  47. I finished reading “Among Others” by Jo Walton. I’m not a fan of the diary style of writing, but other than that, I really enjoyed the book. I can’t help but feel inadequate seeing how many “classic” books the main character has read. lol

        • Rhett: We got a free XBox earlier this year, but so far it’s been nothing more than a DC vs. MK console. I might be willing to check out your fancy Borderlands game. Let’s discuss.

          Ed: Doesn’t the Weeeee come with a pig from market?

          Did we have another weird site moment last night?

          • 🙁
            I got an Xbox for Christmas last year. I don’t think I’ve had it on in 4 or 5 months.
            Just doesn’t seem to be free time for that sort of thing.

            I am also a little dissuaded by the controller “learning curve”. It was fine for Portal but then I tried the first person shooter that came with the Orange Box and also the 007 game that was out last year and I found it just too frustrating to try and get the hang of a fistful of buttons in “real-time”. I wanted the game to be won or lost based on my decision making, not by my failure to know which button to press or how to get the character to look up while also going for cover.
            I realize I could get proficient with the controller if I were to spend a bunch of hours on it … but that gets back to my original problem of not enough free time for that sort of thing.

            Oh well, something to do when they stick me in a nursing home I guess.

          • This mostly stems from Levi and Teresa doing their yearly Mother/Son camping/volunteer tree replanting thing they do in northern AZ and me and Cali having the weekend free. So I was mainly looking to do some multiplayer gaming Friday and Saturday night being as I would be free.I was trying to guilt trip my old gaming buddies on Facebook to pony up for Borderlands, but I haven’t had any takers. Booo! I’d love it Jack if you, or any DPers for that matter, wanted to link in for some gaming. My Xbox live handle is Rhettroh.

  61. So let’s see…

    I’ve got my third load of laundry in the dryer. I went out and picked up some food at the grocery store. My bathroom is clean. And I have cookies baking in the oven as I type. Add to that the day job and I would have to say, I’ve been pretty productive this morning.

  62. I don’t pretend to be a big NFL fan, but I do watch as many Broncos games as I can catch. Either way, interesting how the Refs’ strike has rallied both sides of the aisle together to support labor! I hear even Scott Walker had words to say on the replacement refs (though I am not interested enough in what he says to find them). Great piece on the end of the strike:

    http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dave-zirin#

  70. Sly B and I just updated our iPhones and now, because we share an apple ID, she is getting copies of all of my imessages. So watch what you say! 😉

    We were just saying that cheating husbands all over the world are about to get caught.

  78. Watched Battleship last night as a rental. While I did need to leave my brain on the table in a jar of formaldehyde, it was visually and audibly impressive. I think I enjoyed it more than the Transformers movies as I didn’t have any strong childhood memories being assaulted.

  80. Spent two hours sorting out a graphics card driver problem in my desktop
    PC.

    Turns out the auto updater was installing the wrong driver.

    /shakes fist at AMD

  83. Okay folks, I’m dragging out an oldie but a goodie based on the book I’m reading “Talking to Girls about Duran Duran”. Up to Jack if he would like audio bites for the podcast 🙂

    What songs represent your life/were your favorite at the decade (age 10, 20, 30….)?

    yes I do remember that this was done before, but would love to hear updates or freshies

    • Sure, why not. Listed in the “favorite/represented”
      format.

      Age 10 “Fly Like an Eagle” Steve Miller Band / “Star Wars Theme” London Symphony Orchestra

      Age 20 “Wasted Years” Iron Maiden / “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” U2

      Age 30 “Accident of Birth” Bruce Dickinson / “Barely Breathing” Duncan Sheik

    • I’ll give it a go:

      Age 10: “Another One Bites the Dust” Queen/”I’m Coming Out” Diana Ross

      Age 20: “Signs” Tesla/”Losing My Religion” REM

      Age 30: “OK” Ani DiFranco/”Fell In Love With A Girl” The White Stripes

      Age 40 (eek!): EVERYTHING BY WILD FLAG/”Saints and Sinners” Flogging Molly

  88. A victory for Apple Maps, used it to navigate to Shotts in Scotland.

    The only obvious glitch was a roundabout that wadn’t marked on Apple Maps.

  90. It brings me great sadness to report that Harry Potter is dead. He was a good betta fish and lived for a good long year, but alas, he has succumbed to an unknown malady and passed on to another form of existence. Personally, I regret only that a plunger had to be involved to make his funeral possible.

    He is survived by Indiana Jones, who marked his aquarium-mate’s passing by swimming into the newly open section of tank, once the divider was removed.

  92. Age 10: Straighten Up And Fly Right (King Cole Trio) / Joan Jetty and the Blackhearts Real Wild Child

    Age 20: Enigma Cross of Changes / No Control Bad Religion

    Age 30: Down With The Sickness Disturbed / Duality Slipknot

    Age 40: TBD

  94. The Misses and my son are camping the wilds of northern Arizona. I’m sipping coffee waiting for my daughter to wake up. Then maybe the two of us can grab some brunch.

  96. I feel much better now. I think a lot of my problem lately has been that I finally found someone I work with that I can’t stand. Odd that at 42, this is just becoming a problem for the first time. I suppose I should just consider myself lucky. A mixture of not having a lot of experience telling someone I just can’t tolerate their shit any more, combined with a general avoidance of all conflict has left me extremely frustrated and short tempered.

    Today I decided to call Dish Network and order their service because I really wanted the free Hopper DVR that can record up to 6 shows at a time. When I was told that The Hopper is neither a DVR, free, or able to really record 6 shows at the same time… I snapped. I argued with the sales person for 10 minutes or so, called Dish a pack of scum bags that relish in extremely misleading advertising and then hung up on them. The sales person was not helping in that they just kept asking whether I was ready to order the package yet. They were completely convinced that if I had gone through the trouble of calling them I must be ready to buy. After I came down off the adrenalin high I went out and spent too much money on beer and now I feel great. I just wish I could believe that the next step would be to let loose like this on the person at work that I can’t stand.

    I know that service people on the phone don’t deserve that kind of treatment and I’m sure this won’t help the impression I’m sure I’ve given off of being a complete jackass. I just couldn’t take it any more. Sorry to all those deadpanites that are service people. In my defense I never said anything negative about the sales person. I kept all my comments directed at the company in general.

  102. Remember how, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned how mom said she wanted to get my Boo a house?

    After many conversations back and forth, it turns out, she was feeling her mortality after her brush with death at the beginning of the month. The short of it is, she wanted to put in her will to give MY house to Lyra when she dies. Who knew wills have that much power *shrug*

  103. After all this though, she’s put into my Boo’s head the idea of owning a home. I’ve spent a good part of the weekend researching the feasibility of this prospect for a couple with a very low income and no down payment. All this, while having daddy-in-law here because of the funeral of hubby’s uncle.

    I told Boo, since my mom put the idea in her head, Lyra should ask her to put up the down payment. We’ll see what happens.

  108. But, in better news, I succumbed to temptation and picked up a Nexus 7 tablet for myself. Quite pleased with it so far. Our two Ipads have pretty much become permanently assigned to each of the kids, but I just haven’t found the new Ipads compelling enough.

    I did find it rather interesting that, due to the Ipad’s holding on to the old 4:3 aspect ratio, watching a widescreen video on my Nexus is about the same size as watching it on an Ipad.

  110. I used apple maps for navigation twice today. Both times it took me exactly where I needed to go and did not encourage any wrong turns or anything. Only problem so far is that it doesn’t let you move the map around to see what’s coming next. You can zoom out slightly, but not enough to see where you will eventually go. I like to be able to see what the next turn will be so I can be sure to get in the correct lane.

  111. I’m currently going through some tech upgrades myself. For the first time since college (4 years ago now), I once again have my very own printer. It was a gift from a friend who had received it from her son and didn’t need it, because she already had a perfectly good one. It’s way more awesome than the one I took with me to college – it’s a printer/scanner combo.

    Also, my new Galaxy S II (why not the new S III? Because I may be richer than I was a few months ago, but I’m not that rich) arrived midway through last week, and I’ve started the activation process. I haven’t started playing with it yet, but I probably will tomorrow. 🙂

  112. Actually, I take that back. Hello from the wonderful world of Android for Samsung devices. My new phone is active and working correctly. Switching my contacts and various synced accounts over to the new phone will happen in time.

    Good night, Pan.

  113. (back on my laptop now)

    Wow, Samsung is exhibiting an almost Microsoft-esque OS update behavior: I just got my new phone and the network has just pushed two OS updates to it in a row. On the other hand, they do have the most adorable little animated Android-mascot graphic on screen during the update. :happy:

  114. OK, looks like updates are done now. I got both my Gmail and Yahoo! Mail accounts set up on the new phone, too. I also finally got off my lazy butt and installed an app called Tapatalk, because I have spent far too much time trying to read discussion forum posts on my phone. (Tapatalk gives you a mobile-optimized interface for using specific online forums.)

    Okay, really going to bed now. (Sorry if I bored anyone with all this tech talk.)

    • Sadly, I find that her central premise – “Or is keeping women from finishing their educations, holding down jobs, and living as equal to men the entire point? ” has validity with a certain segment of society. Although I don’t think that is a particularly large segment.
      I did think that her “shower” analogy (which made the bulk of the essay) got kind of “off in the weeds” as we might say on this side of the pond.

      • Unfortunately, I think some of her valid points are lost in the logical fallacies she employs, the false analogy shower argument being the worst one.

        • Some valid points in there lost to muddled reasoning. As a society we are evolving from a past that used to see women as property. And the children of those paleolithic notions live on in more subtle ways now, more nuanced and less confrontational. But they are germinated from the same ideas.

  122. I really really really want to go on a profanity laden rant about using wordpress to make a web site.

    Instead I’ll just say that I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with the incredible lack of control that one has over font sizes/styles/colors/formatting and the mind numbing complexity involved in trying to do the absolute simplest things within one of these “themes”.

    Want to make a ONE line space? Forget about it.
    We don’t recognize (br)anymore. No, that would be much to simple. We will also ignore (div)(/div) unless you put it in there twice. Then of course we will be happy to give you TWO line spaces.

    … and you want to make some text BOLD? Forget it. Fell free to try (b)(/b) all you want. We’ll just turn it into (strong) and instead of making it bold, we will put a background color behind it and reformat your entire line of text! Your welcome!

    I have spent 3 hours now just trying to copy a formated list of results and make a wordpress page out of it.

    Please insert your own, long screaming list of profanities here.

    Thank you.

    • I am so downloading these old time radio shows. Must add to my collection. Must add to my collection. Must add to my collection. Will I ever have time to listen to them? Not important. Must own.

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