The Angry Fat Man

Wow, it's a bitchy day for the Angry Fat Man...

I just saw what had to be like a 12 year old driving an Audi TT and talking on his wireless phone. I'm sure he was out for open lunch, and I'm sure he looked young because I'm getting older....but damn. He almost jumped out into the middle of the intersection because he was too busy talking to his friend in the car and on the phone. Here's the rant...deep breath:

Why do teenagers really need wireless phones? I mean, I hate to bite the hand that feeds me, or at least the company that pays my bills, but damn. It's bad enough that teens have cars like this little punk did, but he also has a wireless? What the hell does he have to stay in touch with somebody 24/7 for? You think when his parents call, he actually answers? I'm sure that's what they think will happen. I did not have a wireless phone during high school or college. Not like I wanted to carry a bagphone during high school or a brick during college, and I know they are small enough to slip in a pocket, but why? If you're supposed to be in school for at least 8 hours a day, and then either working or at home a few hours a night, then what is there left over? The weekends? The time in between? And the problem is that the parents are paying for it...in fact companies know this and market to teenagers and their parents about minutes sharing plans and such. How sad.

Another issue, this kid's driving, seemed to be hampered by talking on the phone. I remember how tough it was for some of my friends to watch the road with us in the car, let alone talking on a phone at the same time.

I just really think it's sad that the parents are paying for this monthly stuff over and above the food and the clothing and sometimes the schooling. When did it become a need instead of a want? Parents think to themselves that their kid can call in case of an emergency, I hate to tell you, you just bought the kid a fast new car, if it's a real emergency, they won't be able to call much of anyone, sad but true. And what is an emergency to these kids? I ran out of money? I'm not going to be home until late? When I was a teen I had to go to a friends house to call home and tell them I wouldn't be home early...or you know, I'd actually plan ahead. I think these attitudes merely lead to lessened responsibility on the part of parent and child.

Anyway, clearly there are some kids that don't need more distraction when driving, and all his parents were doing, was setting him up for a bad fall.

Posted by The Younger (slightly less angry) Fat Man at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A lady at work was bitching about her pictures taking a few hours to process the other day....that just kills me. You know, I really don't understand half-hour photomats...heck I didn't even understand hour or two hour photomats. I mean, I understand that people want things done while they wait nowadays, but how important is it that you get your photos today?

I'm not sure if some of you have like CIA jobs where you need the pictures right now or the world is going to end, or if you just want it now now now because you can't get your ass out to Walmart tomorrow, but we want our pictures before we leave the building. So now it's, wow, you got your pictures in half-an-hour, and you'll subject your poor bastard friends and family to them every once or twice and bring out the truly embarrasing photos for your children's multiple could-be significant others and then what? You had some poor photo jockey run your photos through the machine real quick to sit them all in a box or a musty photo album until you die and your kids trash at least 99.9% of them.

I'm a definite proponent of taking pictures on a digital camera and sending them to an online service, so that you at least have good prints and people don't have to look through thirty shots up your kids nose, your thumb or the fact that you didn't have the damned flash on!

Get with the program.

Posted by The Younger (slightly less angry) Fat Man at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I watched Farscape last night. I tell you what, after watching the last episode of the last season I was P-I-S-T pissed, when they "killed" off the main character. This mini is helping to alleviate the pain, but only slightly. Like you can tell it's been a year or so since they've filmed, because the characters look a bit off.

Here's my nerdy laundry list of complaints:
1. Grayza is pregnant...is this a plot point, or did she just get chubby/real pregnant between last seasons shooting and when they shot this?
2. Sikozu looks completely different. Couldn't even tell it was the same actress, I had to look it up.
3. They filled all of the plot holes from the end of the series too quickly in the Mini. Chiana has new eyes. Rigel found all of the crystals to remake John and Aeryn. The fact that they could reconstitute them came too quick...etc...
4. They are trying to pull too many people into the mini. Like everyone complained about unexplained endings. They brought in Stark, brought back Jool just to kill her, minor players that I've already forgotten their names, etc... Who next, Zhaan? I mean, throwing D'Argo's son into it?? That's pushing the envelope, way too many coincidences.

I think it just feels a little rushed...I mean if everybody and their brother that watches Sci-Fi, which has come a long way in the last 7 years, I must say, really wanted a return of Farscape, then why just a Mini? They had enough info in the first 2 hours of the Mini for at least 3 or 4 episodes.

Oh well, I'll see what they have to show us this evening for the rest of the story.

Posted by The Younger (slightly less angry) Fat Man at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alright, I don't mind Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore fooling around, and I don't mind older actresses looking for younger actors (or vice versa), showbiz people are like that.

But Billy Joel...damn man...
His new wife is 23, and he's probably at least as old as or older than her own father, I mean, the guy is 55. That's 32 years difference, that's right, he was nine years older than she is now, at the time she was born. Yuck! I mean, he was 50 when she was 18, and 42 when she was 10....Ewww...yes, yes, I know, she's an adult and so is he, but goodness, what similarities can there possibly be? He probably listened to old folk rock or blues when he was 18, her, she probably listened to...well, not him, because by the time she was 18, Billy Joel wasn't cool anymore! When he was out of High School, his peers were dying in Vietnam, when she was out of High School, the Millenium was going to hit us and the world was going to end.

See, here is my problem with this. I know a lot of mid to early twenty-year-olds. I know and work with quite a few fifty-somethings. Talk about completely different mindsets and places in their lives! I don't mind that they got married, both have some good benefits out of the marriage. He got some young tail and she got a guy that will probably kick it before she hits her mid-40s....ka-ching! I just think it's disturbing to think that there is no way that this chick would have fallen for him if he wasn't BILLY JOEL! If it lasts, cool and good for them, if not, you can chalk this up to yet another marriage of convenience and add it to the long list of bad marriages for superstars. Good luck and Godspeed Billy!

Posted by The Younger (slightly less angry) Fat Man at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Again, waiting for a script to run and a tech to make test calls, so thought I'd drop some info on the new EVDO (High Speed Data) offering by Verizon Wireless.

It looks like VZW will be out and about with EVDO almost a year before Sprint and God only knows how long before the other carriers. I know the dates for certain markets, but certainly can't disclose them. You know GSM(everyone but Sprint and VZW) doesnt lend itself to play well with data and other carriers are going to have to scramble and blow a lot of dosh to get their networks up to snuff.

EVDO, in a nutshell, is high speed internet run on wireless/cellular networks. Some people confuse this with hotspots, but truly, if you have a wireless card and are in an EVDO city, you can go just about anywhere and get coverage. This is going to be a little different than your 1x data , because 1x, in general, uses the same bandwidth or frequency blocks that voice does. This means the more people, the slower the internet, much like Cable Modem and how many of your neighbors are online.

Some analysts say that if VZW cranks up their hardware and gets enough bandwidth, we'll probably have burst speeds that can equal those of cable modem, if not surpass them. So......maybe we will become a viable high speed carrier....wierd stuff!

Posted by The Younger (slightly less angry) Fat Man at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have to say, I'm so middle of the road in terms of politics now, that I don't know who I'm going to vote for. I may even leave that part of the ballot blank, I don't know yet. Here's what I have a problem with either candidate:

Bush says that Kerry is flip-flopping and that we HAD to strike Iraq to teach them a lesson, and when the U.S. is in danger, we act ASAP. Problem is, we never found nukes, never found anything that would send a payload to the US. Where was the imminent danger? Where were the dirty bomb factories? I'm not saying that there aren't Iraqi agents here in the US that can hurt us, I don't know, but clearly there are still people there, in that country, that don't want us, or anyone else there... And the argument that the people still fighting our forces are just pro-Saddam is stupid. So you think that if the evil Canadians invade and I have a gun, that I'm not going to shoot at them? Even if their cause is "righteous"? Whatever.

Kerry has this horrible problem of not saying what he means in succint terms. I know that the Rep. spin artists truly took his words out of context about the war and say that he is flip-flopping. But damn man, say these two phrases. "He went about the war all wrong" and "I continue to support A war in Iraq". That way there is NO grey area, basically, the war was for the good, but the way we did it, was not. Easy stuff, and with a speech writer on staff, you would think it would be that easy...but no, instead he rambles a bunch and has no feeling in his voice.

So basically, it's the war-mongering good-ole-boy or the boring monotone guy. I dunno, I'm almost inclined just to vote Kerry because I don't know what he can do, he hasn't made any presidential mistakes yet. George can always run again in 4 years.

Posted by The Younger (slightly less angry) Fat Man at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)