Boing Boing is notorious for being overwhelmingly supportive of half-assed ideas simply because of their commitment to copyright reform. This is a fact, and I can back it up with proof.

The IT Crowd. Go download a copy of season 2 episode 5 or watch it on BBC’s website. I’ll wait.

I know I didn’t have to wait long, you guys all checked out about 7 minutes in didn’t you. Maybe you left it running in the background or something you can go ahead and stop it or close it. It’s not getting any better. What part of the show offended you the most?

I’m going to go with the fact that it wasn’t funny in the fucking slightest, but I’m willing to pay attention to other theories.

Boing Boing posts about this show EVERY WEEK. EACH EPISODE is cause for a post about how funny the show is.

However - as you have just seen, from the ‘oh that is so wacky that dude has LIPSTICK on’ gag that lasts 5 fucking minutes to ‘nerd guys can’t say the word bra without passing out’ bit that somehow feels like it is still going on in my brain, in the place that makes hate, that cries for cleansing fire, that wants to douche the world with bleach : It is quite clear that this show sucks three dicks taped together.

So, the fed cut 50 base points and the stock market went totally apeshit. The up shot is that the last recorded 4.8% return on my 401k (and realistically bottomed out 2.5% return) has turned into a 7.5% return. I took the opportunity to ditch my company stock (the only individual stock in my 401k, because they only pay their 3% match out in company stock. Yeah. Awesome.) and roll that money into the VIIIX (Vanguard Institutional Index Plus), which I figure is a fine place for it to be. I’m also making steady progress on my car and house loans, which is pleasant to watch. I’d still like to get rid of the car loan, but progress is better than nothing.

I was talking to a couple people lately who are getting the short end of the stick on this whole sub prime thing, and I’m glad that I didn’t take a loan with the expectation that I could refinance (as I very nearly did when I was initially home shopping). The whole situation smacked a little of too-good-to-be-true, and it turns out it was. Before any of you thinks that I managed to dodge this bullet through any sort of foresight or intelligent deduction, let me assure you, this was a situation where the ground moved beneath my feet and I lucked out entirely. I was getting ready to buy a 270,000 house with my grandma (there was some talk of her helping out with the bulk of the payment, but that had eroded to ’some’ of the payment by the time we were talking about a buy), and she died right after we had the home inspection done. Simple as that.

Any man who does not credit luck with a role in his success is either profoundly vain or profoundly nearsighted, and in either case is profoundly wrong.

I’ve been thinking about buying a Wii or an Xbox360 for a while now (Sorry, Sony) but I think about it and a couple problems keep stopping me.

First off, I think to really appreciate a 360 I’d have to have an HDTV. I know that there have been some technical problems with certain games (Dead Rising notably) on regular analog sets, and I know that the Wii really doesn’t require HD for fun. But my 27″ Symphonic from Wal Mart’s blitz circa 2002 is old and kind of crusty, and I think I am prepared to make the HD leap.

Secondly, Xbox Media Center. If anyone out there has used it, they know what I mean. There is nothing more satisfying to me than using my remote and the Xbox to watch some old TV shows or movies from my file server. It starts up relatively quickly (longer than a DVD player, shorter than an HTPC), and is nicely customizable. I can still use the Xbox to play games (single player only), I can run emulators for old games, I can listen to MP3s on it. I use it every day. It eventually usurped all TV time, because it’s so convenient to be able to pause stuff, watch stuff in just about any format, set bookmarks if I want to stop and start up later. It’s one of the most perfectly designed hardware/software solutions I’ve ever used.

However, despite the fact that everyone I’ve talked to that uses XBMC sees the genius of the package, and overlooks some pretty significant problems with it (inability to turn device on from the remote, technical knowledge and bullshit required to get working in the first place), no commercial company has taken any fucking notice. Brad correctly stated “seems like there should be a $50 chinese thing that would connect to my network and play divx”. But there isn’t. There are media extenders out there that either rely purely on your computer streaming shit to it, or they have bizzaro world format restrictions. Plus they all cost more than the Xbox, even when you factor in a larger hard drive (which isn’t necessary because it plays videos from any windows share, FTP share, NFS share, pocket lint based connection, 3D video cube, or long chain protein biometric storage device). What in the hell are you doing guys? I’d buy 3 right now, one for me, one for my sister, and one for my folks, as long as it has an HDMI out option, can power on from the remote, and retailed for about $100.

Here you go guys, I’m gonna lay it out for you.

480i/480p/720p/1080i output.
Divx/Xvid, AVI, and MP3 compatibility.
Ability to hook to a wired network with a wireless option.
Doesn’t require PC software to stream video to it, just connects to network shares or USB attached storage.
Retails around $100.

I’ll take five.

Not to be outdone, Hannah Aviva, who was my high school sweetheart, has located a series of ever more embarassing pictures of me from our time together. I’ll comment on them in line.

This is Hannah. She says that she told me to take the picture at this odd angle, and that might be true, but I had a “thing” for taking pictures of people at odd angles. This is during a day trip we took up to Jerome. Note the braids, they were melted at the ends, which made these tiny quiet clicks when she moved. Sometimes they would get caught on the polyester clothes that both of us wore much of the time.

This picture was taken at Kitt Peak observatory by Hannah’s mom. That is her sister Audrey on the left. We drove down in their silver Ford Taurus holding hands in the back seat the whole way. We stopped in Tucson and drove to the Popeyes Chicken near U of A. This was the first time I ever had Popeyes biscuits and red beans and rice. It would not be the last. I would drive over a box of kittens for another pair of those Adidas shoes. Note the significant paleness of the shoulders. Hannah did not wear tank tops often. Regardless of her worries that I looked so happy in my picture with Jackie and never looked that happy with her, this was one of the nicest days I ever spent.

This was taken in the add on to the house I grew up in, it was the defacto place to hang out, as it was the only portion of the house that was air conditioned (not just evaporative cooled). This is my sister Sami aged 8 (if the date is accurate, and I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t be). This is during the peak of my acne years, you can tell my my preturnatural sheen.

I dressed up a lot in these days, for reasons I can’t really recall. These were all taken by Hannah, the first two are in the addition at my house (the clip on silver lamp there was over the turtle tank), the last one appears to be the “Hotel California” from when her mom and I drove to Palm Desert California for Thanksgiving. I still have this tie, and probably the ring you see glinting there as well. The black hair was kind of a good indicator of time, because for a significant portition of our relationship, I looked like this.

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Notice the watch, which I still have (suspenders too, but I don’t really wear t hem anymore), and the hair, which looks redder in this than it really was, it was bright ass pink. Hannah’s hair was short, because she had taken the braids out to have them re-done, and somehow it got matted and she had to cut it. She freaked out pretty bad and it made me sad, but I thought it was pretty cute like this anyways. Yes, those pants are reflective on the side, I was doing a lot of my shopping at Savers “military and uniform” aisle. I was trying desperately to be cool enough to have her as my girlfriend, but I never really thought I did enough. I can still feel the slick fabric of that shirt with the stars and planets on it against my forearm, and her fingers looped through a belt loop, pulling me closer to her. I can still smell the conditioner she had in her hair. Sometimes I can still feel the hot Phoenix day melting into cool night, and smell the dusty air coming in through the window of a silver Ford Taurus bound for Boston’s. The Downward Spiral on the stereo and her holding my sweaty hand while she drives us into the darkening sky, and I remember searching my brain for something cool to say so she’d keep liking me for just one more day.

Myspace is fantastic for a limited number of things.

One of them is finding old girlfriends. This is way better than waiting for a reunion, because most of my girlfriends weren’t in the same class as I was, and also because I can think of nothing that would make me want to pour salt in my eyes more than going to a class reunion.

There have been a lot of benefits to finding these women and talking to them, notably that I can try to apologize for the things I did when I was too retarded to understand I was being retarded, and also because I get to stalk them on the computer for a while, finding out what they do now, who they date now, if they have kids, look at the pictures they’ve immortalized online, etc. It’s kind of like the electronic equivalent of digging around in their trash for discarded hairbrushes or old t-shirts, but this is much more socially acceptable. Jackie, who was the very first girlfriend, was digging around in some old boxes and found these two pictures from when we were in junior high school.

Yes, I’m not sure why I’m squinting at the camera, but I do remember my ultra thin gold chain and the St. Christopher’s medallion that hung from it (this may have also been during the time when I was wearing a cross, I can’t really make it out). You see that shit eating grin on the left? That was me having a fraction of a shadow of recognition how lucky I was to be dancing with the hot number in the green dress.

Interestingly enough, I don’t remember looking like this.

I remember wanting to look like this. I remember trying to look like this, but I don’t remember looking like this at all. I have this image of myself, at almost any age, of being this overweight, greasy, pasty kid with shifty eyes and a big nose. Also in my mind I’m shorter. But in these pictures, I look downright normal. Very odd.

Also, the picture of the music room there on the right, brought this full scale memory into my head of the room, with solo practice rooms that locked from the inside. If you went to the opposite wall and opened the doors, it would open out onto the track and the bleachers for the football field, and the hot sun and dust from the gym class running laps would flood in.