Things I Hate: 2

Hello and welcome to the second installment of Things I hate. Before I get going today, I shall inform you that I am labeling all my Things I hate posts with a "Things I hate" label at the bottom of my post. To my understanding, this will allow you to go back and look at any old rants anytime you want. With that taken care of, let's get started, shall we?

Today on Things I hate, political advertisements.

Also, I hate people that call them (ad-vurtiz-mints) instead of (advur-ties-mints), but that is perhaps another rant for another time.

Anyway, I'm sure you've seen the ads popping up, oh, everywhere because of the election coming up. It amazes me how people can be such morons with their signs and their television spots as well.

First of all, people with signs need to realize that 5 signs within 4 feet of one another is overkill. Take for example, Doug Sutherland. Wherever I go, he always has signs up, but there are always 2 signs in close proximity to one another. The farthest I think I have ever seen his signs apart is about 16 feet (on either side of a driveway). The most annoying part is that those signs ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. For those of you that don't know ole' Duggy, he's running [to be re-elected] for the Washington State commissioner of Public Lands. Well shouldn't the commissioner of public lands understand how *not to destroy or deface them*? For example, I pass the 8th and 185th Street intersection daily (the one on the way to my house where you turn right at the gas station by the QFC and across from the Rite Aid). In that intersection, on a tall group of trees in the northwest corner, Doug put up a large sign, approximately 3 feet by 5 feetish about 10 feet up in the trees. Below that sign about 3 feet, is a series of 4 of his smaller signs that I see everywhere. I get the idea, Doug. Seriously, what makes you think that I am going to miss one of those signs at all? THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES IN THAT SPOT AND THEY LOOK LIKE HELL. How could I possibly not miss them? It's idiocy like this that makes me not want to vote for people like him.

Personally, I've never really understood the concept of signs like that. They only really tell the candidate's name; the position they're running for; and occasionally, their party affiliation. Like that's going to change my mind on who I vote for. Ooh, that guy has a pretty sign, he must be better at doing political stuff. How about you get signs that tell me what you want to do. Give me a mission statement or something useful.


Now as for TV ads, these drive me insane. You know how you can get some funny ad and it will be funny the first time, then as it goes on, not so much, until you loathe seeing it? Well political ads start out between not funny and loathing seeing it. Not only that, but you get a huge-ass block of them half the time. I swear, the candidates make up for their lack of debates by placing their commercials at certain times. You get the 1st commercial:
"Hey both candidates, we're just citizens and we want our money. Tell us something good so we will vote for you." "Paid for by local idiots that didn't watch the debates."

Then the second one comes on:
"Well I, Dino Rossi, am barely qualified for this job, but I would do stuff that would help the economy, unlike Gregoire, who is soft on crime." "I'm Dino Rossi and I approve this message."

And before you can wonder why in the hell he just related crime rates to the economy, the third message comes on.
"I'm Chris Gregoire. While I'm barely qualified for the job as well, Dino Rossi is wrong. He thinks I'm tough on crime, but he wants to cut funding and lower the minimum wage." "Oh and also, I approve this message."

So then by this point you think, how did we get from the economy to minimum wage and how did it somewhat make sense? Then the fourth commercial comes on and before you can utter an expletive, it turns out to be just a stupid Burner vs. Reichert ad.

Now Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert, I wonder if you know that WE DON'T VOTE FOR EITHER OF YOU BECAUSE YOU AREN'T IN OUR DISTRICT. Unfortunately, they still advertise the crap out of our stations because we share with so many cities. I'm just happy we aren't getting the Bellingham race advertisements and crap.


Now I really hate these stupid attack ads too. They drive me crazy because they are just such stupid ways of garnering votes. Dave Reichert and Darcy Burner are the worst offenders. You get
"Did you know Dave Reichert is really ineffective? Doesn't that make you not care about how equally ineffective I would be?" "I'm Darcy Burner and I approve this message."

and then

"I'm Dave Reichert and I approve this message" "Darcy Burner SAYS I'm ineffective and she's actually kind of right. In summation, don't vote for Darcy Burner because she's a total bitch."

They just trade weak, girly hits at one another until the stupid voters of the world's heads explode from the inability to make up their minds.

I also hate the I-1000 ads. I-1000 pertains to legalizing assisted suicide, which I was against because I'm against suicide, but a good no-bullshit commercial from the Oregon governor changed my mind on it. Then of course after this, we get a commercial that says:
"My husband died without his dignity because it was illegal to keep his dignity. His dying wish was to have I-1000 approved."
or
"I was apalled that they even suggested the suicide option." (it was number 10ish on a list of 15 options (the other ideas must have really sucked) "She passed away naturally as God intended and her dying wish was to have I-1000 rejected.

Yeah these two I'm sure had I-1000 in their minds 2 years ago when they died before the initiative was ever drawn up.

or you get Martin Sheen, who ISN'T EVEN FROM WASHINGTON. What the hell Martin? You can't just barge into our state and expect everyone to follow your lead.

As for celebrities, I hate these pushy celebrity ads that pretty much call you a little shit if you don't vote. I especially hate the one with Jessica Alba and Hayden Penetenirya or whatever the hell it is. While the idea of Jessica Alba getting anywhere near my face for whatever reason is rather nice, it pisses me off. Where do celebrities get off thinking that they are better than us? I pay your wage, celebrities, don't talk down to me or next time you come out with a movie I know is going to be shitty, I wont go see it!

*ADDITION* 30 minute advertisements? WTF? I WATCH TV SHOWS SHORTER THAN THAT CRAP.


Well now I'm tired. Have a good last week of surviving political ads everyone. Until next week, Peace out.

Perhaps Mondays shall become my new post days.

I've been thinking and I realized that since I have to leave the house at 6:30 for band and since I get back too late to really get into any videogames, I should just sacrifice time to post on these days. This way, I can get more videogames in during the weekend and I don't feel robbed of time on Mondays, so look for my week posts on Mondays. Additionally, "Things I Hate" will be a regular Wednesday update, so look out for that too. And Davis, if you wanted to do a rant about grammar, go ahead. I have other topics that are more important to me than that right now and if someone tells people off about grammar, it will be good (please don't fix the grammar in this paragraph though, I know it sucks). Ok well anyway, I'll get into the week a bit.

New Phone:
If I've talked to you about my phone, you know it has been slowly breaking. I had the Motorolla Razer for 2.5 years and it was a good phone, but it is clearly on its last legs, what with the random silencing or random shutdowns. Mom and Dad, being in the same boat as me, looked up when we could get new phones and it turned out we were eligible now. Mom and Dad don't know exactly what they want yet, but Kathryn and I got new phones. On top of that *WE NOW HAVE TEXTING* so that means I will recieve and actually answer text messages now. No longer will I see a message from Chris and have to assume it means a frisbee game.

So Kathryn bought a sidekick and I was planning on getting something like a razer since I liked it, but then this cute (in the nerdy, shy way (which in its own way is even more attractive)) attendant at Costo (she was about 20, so it's not some older lady if you were thinking that for some reason.) showed me the new G1, the G-phone. It looked super awesome, so after learning more about it from other sources, I decided to spend some extra money from graduation to buy it. It was more than I had intended to pay for a phone, but it is mega awesome. It has internet, GPS, a really good camera, and even an application where you can scan a barcode and it tells you how much that item costs at nearby stores. Today, my accounting class was cancelled, so I learned more about the phone and I even got some solitare in. My number is the same, so don't worry about anything there. I do have to put in your numbers though, but I have them all written down somewhere and they are still on my old phone.

Classes:
My math class has been starting to get challenging again. We got into a lesson that I didn't do so well on in the class last time I had something in that level and this was no different. I had previously been putting up some crazy numbers on tests and if there had been a curve, I would have screwed everyone over, but this time, I fell down to the class average, so the teacher said she recommends I try to pretend I have never seen the material before because the worst thing I could do is think I learned it already and be partially correct. I'm doing well in the class though. I have a 3.8. The lady next to me has a .8 and she seems to be on the ball (maybe not on tests though), so either something is off, or the rest of the class is down between 2.0 and 3.0.

Accouting is going okay. The teacher is extremely boring and everyone I've talked to hates the fact that she assumed we are all on the same level and she doesn't slow down at all to help anyone. One guy in my class finished the last test in 20 minutes. To put that in perspective, I was the second one to finish and it took me 40 minutes. I later found out that that guy had previously taken 3 accounting classes in high school, so if I have any quick questions, I know who to ask there.

Jazz band is fine. I finally remembered my plunger mute and we're getting some good songs going. Also, our trombone section finally showed up and they are pretty good players.

Symphonic band is fine as well. I kind of like being the youngest person in my section by at least 20 years. My section leader also reminds me a bit of Maddy (she is somewhat crazy) and the guy in the second seat reminds me a bit of Nathan (he's quiet, but says a lot of funny things).

English is going well also. It's not a big deal class because we just sit there and pretend we haven't learned about theses yet. I couldn't teach english because it would be repetitive to teach the same thing over and over plus a lot of the people in the class know the material.

Not much else has happened. Orion came back online and we marathoned Guild Wars alliance battles for a bit until we had 10,000 unspent faction, then Orion and I stayed up late (I got to bed 2 hours late) talking about this and that and whatnot.

The rest of the weekend was spent just doing random things around the house. On Sunday, we had a full family party for Kathryn including the relatives from Kent. I got to go down to SPU to pick up my cousin (actually first cousin once removed, but she is part of the family now since she lives so close, so I'm upgrading her because I don't want to type all that crap out when I reference her). It's cool to have her around because she is more like me than the rest of the family. Also, we are the two kids with blonde hair in the family, so I don't look out of place amongst black and brown and even red hair of the rest of the family.

Ok well that's enough for this week. Look out for "Things I Hate 2" this week. Peace out.

In response to the new Mac vs PC ad, I had to make this. The small red square shows "Vista Advertising." First of all, that can't be true because I see at least 5 Mac ads for every Vista ad. Furthermore, look at Mac's advertising money. It includes the red box, the money not in the box, the office equipment, the two hired goons, and the space they are in. Oh and also, the filming crew and the internet access to post it on youtube.

Things I hate: 1

Hello and welcome to what I'm hoping will become a regular (perhaps weekly if I can hate enough things) part of this blog. It's my new segment, "Things I hate." I'm doing it because I promised Orion I would post my enemies list (which is being worked on currently) and a list of things I hate, but I thought this would be a better way to do it. Today on Things I hate, internet fights.

Internet Fights:
We've all seen them somewhere or another, somebody just has to get it off their chest that since someone doesn't agree with their point of view, that person must be gay. I know this is only one scenario, but I feel that I can create the best examples if I use it as an example.

Say, for instance, someone gets on the thread and says something like "Lol wow everyone on this thread is so gay." Refer back to this later.

Now the proper way to respond to this is to use a witty comeback or NOT AT ALL (something many people need to learn). If the witty comeback is used quickly, it can end the fight and people can avoid looking like complete morons, but since nobody that posts on threads is ever witty, you get the most annoying things ever, the three types of hate responses. These drive me crazy because they are present in every thread I have ever seen a fight started in and the people that employ any of these tactics always come out looking like total douchebags. Here are the three types:

The anger approach:
This one tends to make the user look the stupidest of the three tactics, but sadly, this one is used the most frequently because as I said earlier, most people that post on meaningless threads are more useless than paragons. (I know those weren't my exact words, but I like to insult these people). Refer back to the example above. A typical anger approach to that statement would be something along the lines of "Your a moron and I hope you get hit by a car." They are almost always grammatically incorrect in some way and of course, they pack about as much of a punch as a baby with a pillow on its hand. Because of the fact that the people using this tactic look so stupid to everyone, I am the least bothered by it. They have suffered [almost] enough.

The smart-ass approach:
This one is far more annoying than the last approach because the people that use this think that they are better than everyone else on the thread because they possess a language filter in their brains. Unfortunately for them, they don't posses the "getting involved in internet fights is stupid" filter as well. People using this tactic would tend to comeback to the insult by saying something along the lines of "I resent you using the word "gay" in a derogatory sense. Some people in the world are actually homosexuals and take offense to this word being used as a synonym for stupid and on top of that, many people that throw the word around carelessly tend to be covering for their own latent homosexuality." If you made it to the end of that long winded comment, I congratulate you because I usually give up reading by halfway. The people using this tactic resort to facts that are rarely proven and try to hide their inadequate arguing skills by using big words. Way to use Thesaurus.com, dumbasses!

The budding psychologist approach:
Not quite as annoying as the last one, but still very annoying is the budding psychologist approach. The people that use this approach slap on their fake PhD's in human psychology and feel that it is their duty to inform everyone involved in the thread that "This person obviously has some issues in their past that causes them to feed off of other people's anger, so please do not feed them by continuing to post on this post." The only redeeming quality of this approach is they actually try to break up the fight, which is a good alternative to getting involved and looking like an idiot. The only problem is that this approach usually comes with an insult hidden within itself. While they try to break up the fight, people using this approach will still have to psychologically profile the other person and they usually wind up calling them a nutcase.

How can you avoid pissing me off by getting involved in internet fights? It's simple, say something amazingly funny to shut the guy up or shut the hell up. If you have nothing witty to say, don't say anything and maybe people will take your example.

That concludes this week's segment. Please leave a comment if you thought it was good at all or leave any feedback. My intent is to point out things I hate in a humorous manner, so any suggestions on ways I can improve the quality of these posts is greatly appreciated. Peace out.

Salute me, for I am about to rock.

Well the new AC/DC album "dropped" today and unfortunately, if I want to get it legitimately, I have to get over my fear of Wal-Mart and go inside to get it since they are the exclusive dealer of the album in America. I can't go get it today though because it's Kathryn's birthday and I have a night class, so perhaps I shall pick it up during the week sometime.

Ah, Rocktober weather... when I started this post, it was hailing, now the sun is starting to poke out. Well I can't see it very well from here, but I can tell it's not raining at all and it's bright. Anyway, how about I get into the post. It probably won't be too long of once as my posts are becoming. Also, sorry about last week's post. I'll try to post on days when I'm not bored out of my mind.

So college has been going well. My 19 credits are all being 4.0ed, so chances of getting into the UW look good. I've started noticing small things that bug me at the school though. Here is one in particular.

Child Prison:
Actually, it's a daycare, but it is in a place where it takes up an inside classroom, then a patio outside that is enclosed by a wall made of chain-link fence. The first time I walked by it, I saw a kid standing at the fence and hanging on it like a prisoner might, so from then on, I have referred to it as the Child Prison. Unfortunately, my quietest class, math, is in very close proximity to said prison, so when all of them start crying for no apparent reason, it gets quite loud and annoying. Another class affected by this daycare system is my english class. The daycare people like to get out these ropes with handles tied into them to lead the children around in what I call "kiddie convoys." If I thought they were loud in their prison, they're just as loud out on parole in the convoys. Luckily, in Accounting, the timing works out that they are never out when I am in that class. Also, in jazz band, they don't come by simply because it's that out of the way. They would have to learn road safety to cross the street to get to the music building. Also, they would have to go by the smoker shelter built ironically right on the path to the music building (because who needs good lungs to make music?). It's probably all those damn theory kids that play piano.

Well that was a fun little rant. I think I'll do my first rant in my "Things I hate" series sometime this week. This time I mean it. I will actually make a post on it.

On Friday, I went and played tennis with Eric to train for our upcoming challenge. Somehow, the last hour consisted of us volleying the ball over the net while holding a conversation. It was still pretty good and I think we are both going to be unstoppable(er) at the net. That night, Dad and I went to see that new W movie about George W. Bush. It was okay. The ratings were usually around 3/5 stars and I thought that they were pretty accurate ratings.

On Sunday, I went over to Sai's house with Stashley. We got some Starcraft in before doing some Halo and some COD4. Ahmad came eventually, but shortly before I had to leave. We did get to do some castle crashers before that though.

After that, I went to Kathryn's birthday dinner at PF Chang's. My Grandpa was not big on this whole Chinese food idea. The best quote of him from the night was:
Grandpa: What are these things? Straws?
Me: No, they're chopsticks.
Grandpa: Oh, it's too dark in here to see good.
Me: Yeah. You can use the chopsticks on your food though for a nice challenge.
*Grandpa tosses chopsticks away from himself*
Grandpa: Phooey, I don't need any chopsticks, I use a fork. I'm no Chinaman.
My cousin and second cousin were there as well and it was nice to see my cousin (actually first cousin once removed(dad's cousin's daughter)) who I had not seen in a while. I had just seen my second cousin, but this time she brought news of Herman (houseplant I tried to save, but died from root rot.) It was cool to see both of them though because I had not seen much of them this year. In fact, I don't think I have seen them since before I started growing my goatee. By the way, the goatee is getting to the point where I have to comb it now. Just thought you might like to know.

So today, it's Kathryn's birthday. Mom and dad bought this thing last year in the auction for $25 where you get an announcement on the sign in front of Shorewood on any day you want. They had it say "Happy Birthday Kathryn Altena" today. I'm glad that my birthday was never during school. That would have been embarassing.

Ok well that post was actually pretty long. Well have a good week or until I talk to you again (not that this counts as talking to you).

Some pictures since nobody else is posting.

This was one of my latest MS Paint creations.
This is my accounting book. Apparently, surfing somehow relates to accounting.
This is the first "case" I get in Apollo Justice. Someone stole Trucy's panties.
Trucy is your assistant that is constantly involved in perverted jokes and double-entendres like this one.

Interesting posts shall come.

Well I'm more into posting that I was in my last post, so I think I will make a more interesting one now. I know I told Orion I would eventually do a Things I hate/Enemies list post eventually, but I still have to compile more things I hate and to top it all off, I am going to remove Regis Philbin (the reason I started my enemies list) from my enemies list. Look for an enemies list post or maybe a Things I hate rant sometime in the future when I feel like posting but have little to post on. For the time being, I'm going to get down now which football teams I like and which ones I think will actually win this year (the teams I like tend to suck :/).

Here are the football teams that I really like:
1. Seattle Seahawks
2. Indianapolis Colts
3. San Diego Chargers
4. Houston Texans
5. Green Bay Packers
6. Washington Redskins

And this is my prediction of who will get into the finals (not picking wild cards):
AFC:
Buffalo Bills
Pittsburgh Steelers
Tennesee Titans
San Diego Chargers

NFC:
New York Giants (will be very close with Redskins)
Green Bay Packers
Atlanta Falcons
Arizona Cardinals

Ok well we shall see soon enough how many I got right here. Until my next post, peace out.

Oh and by the way....you probably got rick rolled!

IT'S TEETERING ON NINE THOUSAAAAND.

Yeah so college has been getting steadily more boring as the days go by. I go through the day waiting for jazz band or waiting to find out how much the Dow changed that day. The 1000 point dow baby it had today was pretty interesting though. Seeing as how since I don't see any of my friends (except Steven if the timing works out right), I really haven't got much to say about the weekdays. Even last week after school the whole week was boring because I didn't really do much with anyone. Earlier in the week, I registered for ICCup and did a 2v2 with Steven that we lost, then got on with him and Sai for a bit. After that, I didn't really see anyone online for the rest of the week.

School is going fine, but I swear, the more I have to sit through that accursed accounting class, the more I want to just become a lawyer so that I won't have to worry much about accounting unless it comes up in a case. Also, apparently blogging has become boring, but I will keep posting weekly, no matter how short my posts get (they're getting as shitty as the economy), I will keep posting anyway because as I have learned in the past, some days are just better than other for blogging.

In the videogame world, all is well. I just finally beat the last level of an old Xbox game I had never beaten without cheats and I did it on my first try, really putting old me to shame. Phoe- I mean- Apollo Justice is pretty good. I've been doing some odd jobs on Guild Wars in the meantime because Steven will eventually fall in love with the game again and I want to have some money for when he comes back. I haven't gotten to play with Orion in about a month now, but I should be able to this weekend.

This past weekend, I went to the ocean with my grandpa, aunt, and my uncle and his family. We stayed at the Sandpiper, which is this hotel just about a mile south of Seabrook. Every time we drove by it, I thought it was just some crappy little building, but I learned that behind that building is a nice hotel. It was pretty cool. I got to show Seabrook to my parents and we got to go to Ocean Shores. I pwned some Big Buck Hunter and learned that I am too good at Slick Track and regular go-carts.

Aside from all that, not much has been happening, but I expect something interesting will happen soon. Have a good rest of the week I guess.

Well now that I have time...

Well sorry, I bet you were confused when you checked yesterday and found no post. Wait, what's that? You didn't check? Oh well...

Anyway, I was gone most of the weekend and then when I got back, I was supposed to do homework, but somehow wound up playing SC for 4 hours, which was fun, but then I realized I needed to do that homework. So anyway, I'm going to skip doing a day-by-day because since I don't really hang out with people now, I don't need to recount things as they happen daily.

English:
The teacher is still really cool. He has not gone a day yet without a drug/alcohol or sex reference. He's good to have first thing in the morning because if he were a boring class, I would be asleep. Also, I found out that there are two guys in the class that play Starcraft. I don't think they currently play that much, but eventually I will need to ask their Bnet names. I also found out that one of those guys is left handed and the two of us have nearly identical handwriting.

Accounting:
This has become the new music theory. The teacher just lectures for an hour and then we go home and do homework. It isn't particularly hard, but I wish I didn't have to show up to class since every word she says is put on a powerpoint then onto the internet, which is way more interesting than listening to her telling me about it.

Jazz Band:
In case Orion was wondering, I met Dan the man from Stanwood and he's pretty cool. In the band, there are 12 men and of us, 9 have facial hair of some sorts. The other three need to get on the ball, though one guy looks like he would have trouble growing some. We're getting better at our songs and it's quite fun.

Math:
I love that this is a four day a week class. It's nice to have that extra hour off on Fridays. I'm doing well in the class. I am in the top 10% at least of the class, so it is working out well.

Band:
It meets once a week, so my third meeting is tonight, but I don't know how we are going to be ready for concerts in 5 rehearsals. It's scary to think about, but I guess if the program has had success in the past, we can do this.

School life:
Well if anyone has talked to me, they know I don't spend a second at SCC longer than I absolutely have to. Between classes though, I see a lot of people from Shorewood and it's cool to be acknowledged by people I have not spoken to since before high school or ever in some cases.

This weekend:
This weekend, my family and I went down to my Grandma's house, which was pretty cool. On Saturday, we went to the Saturday market, which is as I remember it: 50% jewelry, 25% art, 25% useless crap and 90% run by hippies. I also missed seeing Maddy due to her standardized testing or something. After that, we went to Powell's bookstore to get my english books for the quarter because they were cheaper there than at the bookstore. I got both The Alchemist and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (By Phillip K. Dick, it was the inspiration for Blade Runner evidently)

Also, my grandma is now trying to get rid of everything she doesn't want or need around her house and giving it to family members or charities that need the things. She gave dad and I a lot of new tools and means to keep them organized and she also gave me my grandpa's old laptop. It's nothing fancy, just an ALIENWARE, just kidding. Just a 2002 HP with a 2.6 GHz processor and 500MB of RAM. It's good enough to run Word Processing and Starcraft, which is all I need in a laptop. If I need to really game, I can use my computer of 1337ness.

Now I am back half an hour later realizing that I forgot to hit publish, so until next time, Peace out.