Entertainment

The Latest

Daniel

I found the AC charger. Turns out I took a suitcase and a backpack to Buffalo. I put the charger in the backpack for the trip home, and never took it out. Dammit.

Spider-Man really just gets better and better every week. Even if MTV is only showing one new episode per week.

This game is good.

I downloaded and installed Mozilla. I’ve got 1.4 running, but I couldn’t get Firebird 0.6 to work on my system. It freezes on launch. Version 1.4? … It’s good, but all I hear is how quick it is … for me, IE is quicker. Hopefully when Firebird finally goes gold (probably as Mozilla 1.6) it will compete with IE’s speed on my machine.

The Latest

MTV Shows

Daniel

Let me hit upon MTV‘s Spider-Man cartoon one more time.

It seems to be getting better. I originally said that it was very good, but maybe not excellent. Now … I think I can say that it’s excellent. Today I caught last week’s episodes (I missed them because I was busy in B-lo) and tonight’s new episodes. It’s hot shizzle. They’re showing episodes out of order, and I sort of assumed that would happen from the start. I think the plan was to put out some on-par episodes while people adjusted to/got their socks blown off by the technology, and then to cue up the really impressive episodes. I liked the Lizard episode from last week, but I thought tonight’s stuff was top notch. Maybe it was just the whole MJ thing … I don’t know; everything is awesome. There’s so much more depth than you’d find on a Saturday morning cartoon. Again people are getting killed, there is actual relationship exploration, things aren’t always simple … when they put out a DVD, I’m gonna snap it up.

Short Take: Have I mentioned Doggy Fizzle Televizzle before? Some of the skits are a little weak (like the Braided Bunch), but most of them are well worth watching, so all in all I’ve enjoyed every episode I’ve seen. It’s on Sundays, right before Who’s Got Game … There’s a guy on this show whose nickname is White Chocolate (He’s a white guy) … Once he’s off the show, can we all (and by we all, I mean Western Civilization) just pretend that he never existed?

MTV Shows

Spider-Man Cartoon

Daniel

Spider-Man on MTV was very good. I’m not sure it was excellent, but it was very good.

The voice acting was nearly flawless. The only complaint I had about that was an instance or two of what seemed like choppy editing, and that isn’t really the actors’ fault. Neil Patrick Harris is Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Lisa Loeb is Mary Jane Watson, and Ian Ziering (Beverly Hills, 90210) is Harry Osbourne. The show also has some pretty solid reoccurring characters (who didn’t show up in the first two episodes) and some nice choices for guest characters.

The animation? It’s cel-shaded, which means that even though it’s done entirely in computer graphics, it’s done in a way so that it looks like traditional animation. This effect has been around in video games (Jet Set Radio Future, Sly Cooper, Auto Modelista) for several years, but I believe the new Spider-Man cartoon is the first televison show ever to use it, and I don’t think there have been any films done with the technique. What Spider-Man delivers might not be as good as Finding Nemo or any of Pixar’s latest, but I like it better than any traditional animation. And it’s the best cartoon television series I’ve ever seen. The team behind the visuals is Mainframe, the same house that produced the ReBoot Saturday morning fare that was on ABC(?) a few years back. I enjoyed ReBoot while it was on because it was entirely CG, and that was different back then.

Of course, I like to nitpick. When Spider-Man’s costume rips it’s pretty obvious that the animators put a patch that looks like skin on top of the costume. Everyone’s clothes seem to be a little too tight, particularly those on the male characters. Everyone’s waists seem to be a little too small in relation to their chests – especially on Peter. However, I’ve felt for a long time that one of the biggest quality tests on any animation is whether characters’ feet stick on the floor when they walk, or if they slide because of timing errors. As far as I could tell, when characters walk in this show it is absolutely convincing. Animators may have gotten this to look right beacause when Spider-Man crawls on walls not only does it look believable, it looks unlike anything I’ve ever seen. At first I thought it looked too much like they tried to make him look like a spider … but the more I thought about it, the more I think that it looked exactly like it should have.

The stories so far have been less than perfect, but still better than any cartoon series or any superhero television series up to this point. Villains kill helpless humans, villains kill other villains … it’s grittier than I expected, and I welcome that. The depictions of fatal wounds aren’t particularly graphic, but you can clearly tell when a person is killed. In a show like the Spider-Man cartoon that was on Fox Saturday mornings, I’m sure that no characters ever died or at least were ever shown being killed.

The dialogue is about 100 years ahead of any Saturday morning fare, but I think it could still use some slight updating. Ever hear a joke like, “Jaromir Jagr just called – he wants his hair back”? In one episode, Peter Parker uses a variation of that joke. It’s better than the pedestrian stuff you hear on Saturday mornings, but that joke is at least five years old.

I do have to give the show a lot of credit. The characters are in college. They drink coffee out of cups that look like they came from Starbucks. They go to parties. They drink alcohol. It’s a good time.

Short Take 1: So I have multiple email addresses. I have one for friends and family, one for job applications and resume sites, and my yet-to-be-deactivated RIT address. My personal address is on Yahoo! Mail, which I feel is the best free email service available. It’s so great, I wish I could use a second Yahoo! address for my resumes and applications. I would do this, but you can only be logged into Yahoo! with one username per computer at any given time. Why is that? If I were to download and install Netscape 7 or Mozilla or both, I could be logged into Yahoo! with two or even three usernames at once. So if I can accomplish it with a little bit of work, why not just let me accomplish it with one browser? Hear that, Microsoft? I mean, if I can open multiple browser windows, why can’t I check two different Yahoo! email addresses at the same time?

Short Take 2: On the latest episode of MTV’s The Real World: Paris I noticed that the desktop on the chateau PC had an image from Digital Blasphemy. It’s a 3D desktop site. For a while I used one. The images are very high quality. You have to pay to get access to all of them, but a lot of good ones are available for free.

Spider-Man Cartoon

Matrix Reloaded and TechTV

Daniel

Geek post today. I came across two short articles at Cnet News.com today.

The first article is about The Matrix Reloaded. In the film, Trinity hacks into a Unix machine with actual open source programs rather than with cheesy visual effects often used in film. The cool part is, the haXXor who wrote one of the programs didn’t know his work was going to be used until he saw the film in a theater. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you wrote a program and it showed up in a Matrix movie?

The next article was about TechTV. It says that the channel reaches 40 million homes, but only about 40,000 people watch it every day. Forty thousand? During my senior year of college I watched Call for Help almost every weekday. Morash would often watch it with me … I know Smiz likes it. So that’s three. There’s got to be about 1,000 people who go to RIT who watch it every day. At least. Then there’s the cast and crew … that’s gotta be another hundred. Then there’s all their parents. That’s like another 200. I’m already up to 1,300. How many people go to RPI? Ten thousand? Well there’s another 10,000. So that’s 11,300 people. And that’s only a couple people in New York and California. If I were to keep this up I’m sure I could get to a million daily viewers.

Matrix Reloaded and TechTV

Rant

Daniel

The new Apple iStore ads suck worse than previous Apple ads, which is saying a lot. Females should not be allowed to put poetry and/or song lyrics in their buddy info. Summer should be longer than winter. If you feel like the world owes you something, maybe it does. Shaquille O’Neal drops his shoulder on everybody, and his jokes aren’t funny, but he gets calls and people laugh because he’s big. Last year Jason Kidd was the NBA’s real MVP. Maybe Michael Wilbon is right, and hockey should just be called “goalie.” It’s a travesty that it costs money to listen to “The Jim Rome Show” on the Internet. DSL should be available in Chipmonk. The United States should probably have switched to HDTV by now. Everybody wants to rule the world. Eminem should focus less on D-12. It’s the economy, stupid. If big airlines were run the way that small airlines are run, they wouldn’t need government money to bail them out. Summer should still be longer than winter. Nintendo should drop out of the console business. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Java is a lot like C++. It’s time to format c: again. The New York Mets are a train wreck. File-swapping is not the record industry’s only problem. Dan Brown is getting married. The Matrix Reloaded is good. Rule of thumb: plural words are usually not “apostrophe – s.” Books will survive the digital revolution. Chip ‘n’ Dale are not intimidating. I want a 24 inch HDTV. Finding a job sucks.

Rant

Rome is Burning

Daniel

I keep meaning to address this in a post. Jim Rome is coming back to ESPN with Rome is Burning. I assume that The Final Word is no longer on Fox Sports Net. I always liked Romey’s radio show better than The Final Word. I wonder if Rome is Burning will be better, worse, or more of the same? It can’t be any worse than Mohr Sports. And at least ESPN decided not to bring back Beg, Borrow and Deal (which originally was called Beg, Borrow and BS).

I went to Rome’s web site a week or two ago because I wanted to listen to the radio show. You now have to pay to listen. What a bunch of crap! Here in A-Town, none of the (three) local stations carry The Jungle, and AM stations don’t carry all the way from Buffalo or Rochester. I’m pissed. But I am looking forward to watching Rome on ESPN. I wonder if Jim Everett will be Rome’s first guest.

One problem I have is that here in C-Monk, we don’t get cable TV because we live “on the other side of the Indian Reservation.” Until I was in 8th or 9th grade, we only got NBC and CBS. At that point we got Primestar. We didn’t get MTV until I was in 11th grade. A few years ago, DirecTV bought out Primestar, so now we have DirecTV. It’s a blessing, but if you want it in more than one room, you’ve got to pay additional charges each month. So, if we want to watch two programs that are on at the same time, that’s too damn bad. This is a problem because Rome’s new show is on ESPN at 7 PM, and my dad watches … Jeopardy … each night at 7 PM. Pardon the Interruption replays later each night on ESPN2, and I hope that Rome is Burning will also have a later encore. But as of two minutes ago, I couldn’t find a single mention of Jim Rome on ESPN.com. WTF? Anybody know if they’re going to replay it nightly?

Rome is Burning

My Plan to Bail Out the Record Industry

Daniel

Well, I guess Steve Jobs is going to save the world. Apple just opened up the iTunes Music Store. “Only” 99 cents per song download. I mean … this issue is getting old. People who have attended college in the last five years know that we will likely never have to pay for any music ever again. If you have a fast enough connection and a DVD burner, you soon won’t need to buy a DVD or a video game ever again.

Hmm. Video games. Maybe the music industry should change the music standards every five years or so. You know, how Nintendo, Sony (and Microsoft) release a new video game system every five years. Make the quality so much better that players released just five years previous become totally obsolete. So you can get all your music for free, but if you want to listen to it in your car or in your stereo, you’ll need to upgrade the critical digital audio component. Cost every five years? $200.

For this to work the technology would really have to innovate every five years. And that’s a problem, because will the average person really ever appreciate the difference between, say, CD audio and DVD audio? Probably not. I mean, if you compare the quality of a VHS movie to a DVD movie, you can tell the difference. They’re saying now that blue laser DVDs will bring an even greater leap in picture quality than DVDs brought. I’m not sure I buy it. To keep consumers buying, the collective entertainment industries are going to have to not just improve what’s already available, but actually add new features. Video games are very close to reaching the point where technical innovation no longer matters. PS3 games will look better than PS2 games, but will PS4 games really look any better than PS3 games? What then?

In Fahrenheit 451 households didn’t have televisions — they had video walls. People could have video on one wall, or two, or three, or all four. I think TV will eventually get to that point, and movies and video games will have the luxury of playing catch-up to technology for a while. Still, it’s taking forever to switch from NTSC to High Definition Television. And once we switch, no one’s going to want to buy Super HDTV or whatever ten years later.

This conversation could really go on forever. People are always going to want something better. And they’re not going to want to pay more for something that’s just as good. The problem with music is that it’s just audio. At the same time, that’s why people love it. You can read while listening to music, you can run or work out while listening to music, you can drive your car while listening to music. Music is separated from books, from video games, from television and movies because it is so portable. And because of new technologies, it is literally transportable for free.

I’ll bet you’ve heard an argument for file swapping that sounds something like this: “If you wanted Stephen King’s latest book, you wouldn’t want to buy a box full of his last ten books. But if you want Eminem‘s latest song, you’ve got to buy an album with is latest ten or so songs.” Eh. You know what? I don’t know if it holds up. You can buy singles. Still, they are usually on tape, which isn’t as good. But does anybody want to keep stacks of CD singles? No. One of the things I like least about CDs is the space they take up. Yeah, they’re flat, but stack ten of them and you’ve got a nice little bundle that will tip over pretty easily. In the digital world, buying a package of data is inconvenient. You don’t want the packaging — you just want the data. The problem is, you can get the data for free. It’s like the cow/milk line — why buy the package if you get the data for free?

I’ve read that Paul McCartney had the biggest dollar intake of all musical tours worldwide last year. Paul McCartney? The reason why? Because people who grew up with The Beatles now make up the wealthiest age division. People in their forties and fifties are generally the people who are the most financially comfortable but still energetic enough to leave the house. So Paul McCartney is the hottest ticket in town. And now, people in our twenties refuse to pay for music? What does that mean? Paul McCartney is going to be big for a while. Let’s face it, kids — There’s never gonna be another Beatles. There’s never gonna be another Michael Jackson (before he became white). Teenage and preteen girls will buy five copies of N*Sync’s latest CD because “Justin Timberlake is so hot!” Even Eminem appeals to that crowd. In one song Eminem even says, “I go on TRL/look how many hugs I get.” He may not have intended to appeal to that crowd, but would he be selling as many CDs if he didn’t? No way.

So now we look at current big artists like N*Sync, Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears, and we all want to puke because they are so saccharin and so deliberately crafted to be money-making machines. But people who like those artists buy CDs to “support their artist.” Hey, I’ll admit — I bought Eminem’s last CD to support my artist. I don’t know if I’ve listened to The Eminem Show all the way through five times since I bought it. But if he comes out with another album, I’ll almost certainly buy that one too. But the record industry appeals to the 11-15 crowd because they buy CDs. (God, where am I going with this?)

I’m trying to make one big point here, but there is no one big point. It’s a big picture. Record companies promote artists that aren’t very serious because the biggest CD buyers are 11-15 year old girls, and they don’t like music that’s too serious. So 18-26 year olds think that the stuff plastered all over TRL is crap, and for the most part, we’re right. In turn, we’re more than willing to say “f— you” to a music industry that has largely abandoned us. Therefore, we download rather than buy music we like, sales for our music decline even further, and the record industry invests even less money into the talent we really appreciate.

It seems like the point I’ve reached is that to improve sales, the record industry has to appeal to the demographic with the most disposable income: 18-26 year olds. Hell, I bought all three of Eminem’s CDs even though I had more than enough access to file-swapping services. Lewis bought the Tool CD that had all the transparent pages in the liner (but let’s admit, he would have bought it if the liner was a one-page photocopy). I recall Morash buying Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water (sorry, Chino). Brown still buys NOFX CDs. (Never mind. NOFX sucks.) Of course, there will be people like Smiz … I don’t know if he’s purchased a CD in the last three years.

Anyway, I think the point is that the music industry has to appeal to the 18-26 crowd, and they’ve got to release CDs with 7-10 good songs instead of 2 or 3 good songs, and they’ve got to produce music that is honestly better. Sales might never be as good as they were, but if that’s the case, then cut costs! I used to listen to REM, but they never needed an $80 million contract. You want to talk about artists starving because the slump in sales is making it harder to get new contracts? How many contracts did Warner Brothers cancel after they spent $80 million on REM? It’s the same with US commercial airlines — not making a profit? Cut costs! Stop paying CEOs $40 million a year!

CUT THE BLOAT!

My Plan to Bail Out the Record Industry

Commercial … Games

Daniel

Been avoiding the page a little lately. I’ve been putting a lot of work into the redesign. I can’t get the colors quite right on my sister’s computer. This week I should be able to get my system going, and with PhotoShop I should be able to get the colors more like I want. After I get the colors right, do a background image, and create some corner rounders for the layout boxes, I should be able to go live with the new design.

However, I just filled out a survey for Sony’s PS2 site, and I typed this into a box that asked something like, “What do you think is important in videogames today?” So this is kind of a cheapo post, but it’s a post nonetheless.

The one facet of games today that I feel is suffering is polish. There are some games that miss deadlines, but for the most part it seems that developers try at all costs to deliver games before Christmas or before whatever their deadlines are. I feel that games are released that seem as though they are only 99% or even 95% finished. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City could have used a lot of polish, a lot of finishing touches. Taking damage when you run down stairs, streets popping in as you drive over them … even the clothing system that seemed worthless. But Vice City made it out before November. It could have used another month of development and still had a nice Christmas release. Maybe it should have had more than a single year of development. Of course, PC games can be updated with patches. It looks as though Xbox Live can deliver new levels and characters, and apparently Unreal Championship will release a patch over the Live service. Official magazine demo discs could also provide updates, as was the case with Dead or Alive 3. Unfortunately, a hard drive is a neccessity for complex patches. PS2 doesn’t have a hard drive (yet), but it would probably enable patches to be a viable option. Perhaps PS3 will come with a built-in hard drive. Of course, giving developers the option of releasing patches may make for even more hurried releases. And users without internet access or a broadband connection may be left in the dark even more than they are now in regard to the quality of game releases. This is an interesting problem. Perhaps consumers who purchase M rated games such as Vice City or Unreal Tournament/Championship would be more likely to have Internet/broadband than consumers who purchase E and T rated games. In my experience, M rated games tend to be more complex, and also appear to be most likely to be most in need of a patch. So perhaps patches for M rated games would not only be the most needed, but also the most widely downloaded.

One more thing: Brian Lewis keenly pointed out that the Jordan vs. Jordan commercial that I liked used complex computer special effects, which I derided and plan on deriding more in a future post. Lewis’s comments got me to thinking, and I’ve concluded that it’s not the use of the technology that bothers me, it’s the use of the technology for technology’s sake. Or using the technology just to prove that it can be used. The kid getting sucked into a Pepsi bottle? Kind of stupid, but it was a visual effect that wasn’t possible a couple years ago. The Jordan commercial? It was made so we could see Jordan playing basketball against a younger version of himself. Technology … for art’s sake? I guess that’s good enough for me.

Commercial … Games

Super Bowl Report Card

Daniel

Super Bowl Report Card.
For some categories I’m going to give a letter grade, for some categories I’m going to declare a winner, and … if there’s anything that doesn’t cover, I’ll explain when I get there.

First, the winning team – the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Although the defense let Oakland get close at the end, the Raiders were always several scores away. It never got close, and it was never really even exciting. Tampa Bay’s offense also delivered more than it promised. After Brad Johnson threw a pick on their first possession, he never panicked, and he never looked back.
Bucs’ grade: A

Next, the losing team – the Oakland Raiders. Two words: Five interceptions. In most football games, the team that wins the turnover battle wins the game. That trend continued in Super Bowl XXXVII. Oakland’s defense never impressed, and its NFL ranked #1 offense never generated anything until the game was out of reach. The Raiders scored 21 points, but their only real bright spot was the punt block and touchdown return.
Raiders’ grade: C

Now, Halftime entertainment. First, Shania Twain. From what I could tell, her songs were lip synched. She didn’t look like she was singing, and when her guitarists threw their guitars into the crowd — while the guitar music was still playing — that confirmed it. Also hurting Shania’s grade: She’s a native Canadian, and she moved to Europe.
Shania’s grade: D (Should have been an F, but she’s hot.)

No Doubt. I’ve never been a big No Doubt fan, but they played “Just a Girl,” which is … maybe their biggest song ever. (Brown could correct or confirm me on this.) Their recent music hasn’t been … as good. It hasn’t really been good at all. So what do they do at the Superbowl? They play their best song. Nice move. Gwen Stefani sounded very flat, and a little old, so that didn’t help. But, when I saw that Sting’s band was still No Doubt, I was impressed. When Gwen came out and sang with him, I was very impressed.
No Doubt’s grade: B-

Sting. I’m kind of a Sting fan, which is odd, because I only own one Sting album. Okay, two – but one is his best of album. I like the fact that he teamed up with No Doubt, and I like the fact that he sang “Message in a Bottle.” He’s had some relatively popular songs lately, but I’m not sure he ever had a hit quite as big as some The Police had. Finally, good song choice. He didn’t perform anything inappropriate for the Superbowl, and “Message in a Bottle” seems like it’s not too popluar, but popular enough to be recognized and enjoyed.
Sting’s grade: A

The Commercials. Apparently something like 40% of Superbowl viewers watch not for the game, but for the commercials. These people deserve to be hit over the head with a tack hammer. Anyway. I thought some of the commercials were good, but none were laugh-out-loud funny. I also thought that there were a lot of commercials with prime first half slots that had already aired in the past week or even earlier. One that comes to mind is the “Jordan vs. Jordan” Gatorade commercial. This is a recent trend, and it’s kind of disappointing. Still, I think I watch every year more and more for the game and less and less for the commercials. I’m just not sure I’m in the majority on that one. I also didn’t notice (or can’t remember) any commercials that used complex computer special effects. It’s a relief. Remember the Pepsi commercial from a few years back in which the kid at the beach sucks so hard on the straw in his Pepsi bottle that he sucks himself into the bottle? I thought it was a little much. (This leads me to another question — and possibly another post topic: Ten or twenty years from now, will we look back at film and television and commercials from the 1990s and 2000s and think that computer graphics were overdone?) I did like a few commercials, and I’ll get to them. Overall, I think they did not live up to the best commercial years, which may have coincided with the Bills Superbowls.
Commercials’ grade: C+

Special Award for Merit: Given to ABC Sports for replacing Eric Dickerson with Lynn Swann. Did they switch back to Lynn during this season of Monday Night Football without me noticing? Was Swann there this whole year? Either way, it was a mistake getting rid of Swanny and it was the right move bringing him back.

Best Commercial. This was tough for me. It boiled down to two spots that stood head and shoulders above the rest. My top two commercials were the Matrix Reloaded/Matrix Revolutions commercial (I still fully expect Matrix Revolutions to get pushed back to 2004 after Matrix Reloaded makes a ton of money) and the Reebok commercial featuring Terry Tate, the office worker who acts like a linebacker. It was tought. The Terry Tate ad was the only commercial that I noted based on its own merits. I paid attention to the Matrix commercial because it’s the Matrix and well, M47R1X R0XXORZ!!! The Reebok ad was funny; the Matrix ad was compelling. The Reebok ad was new; the Matrix ad spotlighted new chapters to an existing, but popular, story. So who gets the Iverson Bobblehead?
Best Commercial: Reebok, “Terry Tate”

Finally, I’ve got to rip on Bon Jovi. First, why the hell is there “postgame entertainment”? WTF? Just hand out the trophy, name the MVP, and let’s get to Jennifer Garner in skimpy lingerie! But no, we’ve got to listen to Jon Bon Jovi sing the same song he’s been singing since the Devils won the Stanley Cup almost three years ago. New Jersey sucks! Get over it.

Finally part II. Alias. Yeah, I watched. I wanted to see Jennifer Garner in skimpy outfits. It looks like next week she’s gonna be in a bikini. I’m only human.

PS – I didn’t talk about the music industry like I said I would. I think I’ll add a To Do list. If it’s no good, I’ll get rid of it.

PPS – The Don Cheadle “Playoffs” commercials suck. “They made Joe … Joe.” “They made roman numerals … Roman Numerals.” Don – you were good on Picket Fences, but … get off my TV screen.

Super Bowl Report Card

Little Bit o’ Everything

Daniel

Finally got the Wizards pics up. Yes, those are the Wizards dancers. If I remember correctly, they were wearing blue and white earlier in the game, but came back later wearing black and gold. I think they even changed a second time, into a third outfit that was again black and gold. Go figure.

Not much else to report lately. El Niño is making everything cold. At least El Niño is partially responsible. There’s also the dip of the Arctic air. It comes down every winter, just usually not this far south and this cold.

Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies. Remember when Chewy Chips Ahoy were new? I thought they would be so great — then I tried them. They sucked. I stayed away from soft style store bought chocolate chip cookies from then on. Then during college (note that for me, college is in the past tense), Dan Brown had a bag of Keebler Soft Batch. I assumed, naturally, that they would be no better than Chewy Chips Ahoy. To my delight, I was mistaken. I nearly finished the bag, but Brown pried it away from me. So that brings us up to about three weeks ago. I’m walking through the grocery store, and I didn’t feel like Oreos or standard blue bag Chips Ahoy. So I figured, how about Chewy Chips Ahoy? I’ll bet they’re pretty much the same as Soft Batch. Maybe my tastes weren’t as defined the last time I tried them. Maybe there were drastic improvements in soft stlye cookies over the last decade.

I was wrong. Chewy Chips Ahoy are as bad as ever. I want to say that they contain gelatin. It’s really quite revolting. I couldn’t finish the bag. So the next time I was at the store I cautiously purchased a bag of Soft Batch. Although they didn’t seem as good as the time I first tried them courtesy Dan Brown, they were pretty damn good. I definitely sense a similarity between Chewy Chips Ahoy and Soft Batch, but … Soft Batch is better. Chewy Chips Ahoy are not tolerable. Soft Batch are more than acceptable.

Alright. Drastic change in topic. Social Security Cards. I carry mine. I hate to do it, but sometimes – like when you least expect it – you need it. Like at the DMV. I mean, do you really want to wait in line for eighty minutes just to be told that you’ve got to come back when you’ve got your Social Security Card? And at a recent temp job orientation I had to hand it over with my driver’s license so that both could be photocopied. Granted, it was a government contractor, but … The way the Social Security number is used in this country is ludicrous. All you hear is, “Don’t give it to anybody. For any reason. Ever.”

Bullshit. When I got my cellphone at Radio Shack I had to speack to a Sprint representative on the in-store phone. I had to tell the person on the other end of the line my Social Security number. Meanwhile, any of the seven other people within arm’s reach could just jot it down. Make a credit card purchase over the phone? Better hope the friendly voice makes enough at his or her part time, minimum wage job. Next thing you know, some fifty year old bald guy puts his $10,000 trip to Aruba on your bill. This system stinks! For one thing, the original purpose of the number – retirement benefits for everyone – now amounts to chicken feed, and will likely be dried up by the time people our age retire. So now it’s more of a personal security number. Only problem is, it’s not very secure, and it’s certainly not private.

The solution? Probably bio-identification. Thumbprint scanners and retinal scanners. Maybe even voice recognition. We can send a credit card number over a phone line. Why not a high resolution image of a retina over the Internet? They ran out of phone numbers because of credit card scanners, but IPv6 should mean that we’ll have enough IP addresses to last forever, right? Right?

I think next time I’ll talk about how the record industry is F’ed. Have I talked about that lately? How about I discuss the different industries that have changed drastically or will change drastically because of advances in technology. I’ll start with photography. I’ll include telephony and music. Movies will get thrown in there. Stay tuned.

Little Bit o’ Everything