It's a shame that people these days have to watch such garbage during prime time as American television shows has reached an all time low. Of course, with a plethora of channels available, there are plenty of alternative options with great shows (e.g. Discovery Channel, History Channel, etc) but the major networks are filled with regurgitated horse shit during prime time.
The first problem with American television is that when they come up with a hit show, they milk it for way too long. There's no end in sight for shows like American Idol and Survivor. Personally, I thought the shows sucked when they first came out with it but the general public seemed to be easily amused and so on and on they go. Every new season is the same exact shit and yet people are still glued to their sofas watching these lame ass shows. The 8th season is coming in 2009 and Randy still thinks he's white, Simon is still a cunt, and Paula...who gives a shit about Paula?
To make matters worse, once a show takes off, other douche bags who want a piece of the fungus infested pie join the game and create pretty much the exact same shows with a slight change. "So You Think You Can Dance" and "America's Got Talent" comes into mind. The producers of these shows lack so much imagination, that they stick to the same format of 3 judges and in the case of "America's Got Talent" they just replaced Simon with another cunt from the UK with the same kind of lame sarcastic, demeaning remarks. In another example, Iron Chef became a huge hit on the Food Network. The original Japanese version was a pretty exciting show where chefs would battle for a set period of time (usually 1 hour) to create a full course meal from the secret ingredient, which tended to be exotic and pricey items. Of course, with the high ratings the show was plagiarized and thus Iron Chef America was born. However, without the flamboyant, semi-retarded Chairman and the fact everyone is actually speaking English rather than the entire show being dubbed in English, the show lacks the charisma. Furthermore, some of the secret ingredients in the American show have been extremely lame such as bacon, potatoes, onion, and beets. What's next? Chef Boyardee canned pastas?
With globalization, plagiarism within one's own country isn't quite enough. We need to go beyond our borders and steal ideas from other countries. The prime example in this case would be "The Office". I have to admit that the American version is decent. It does a good job of addressing themes common to the American corporate environment. However, in my opinion, the UK version was much better and the absolutely beautiful part of the UK version was that it was short and sweet. Two seasons and two special episodes and the story was told and they stopped at the peak of their game. With the American version, I have no doubt it's going to go on for countless seasons and the story is going to drag along until people lose interest because the show isn't funny anymore. User ratings seem to be the only factor that can stop production of a show. Finally, I've seen commercials for a new show called "Kath and Kim", which is a hit show from Australia. So the global plagiarism continues...
As a side note, can anyone explain to me how Deal or No Deal became such a hit? There's absolutely no skill involved in that game show and yet people are loving it. It's almost like giving a retarded kid multiple dollar bills and him having a blast for hours in front of the change machine that spits out 4 quarters every single time.
I personally watch a lot of TV but you'll rarely find me on any of the major networks. I tend to lean towards the cable networks and spend a majority of my time watching Mythbusters, Man vs. Wild, Reno 911, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jon and Kate Plus 8, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Ninja Warrior on the G4 channel, watching random shows on the Golf channel, or watching random shows on truTV like Cops or World's Most Amazing Videos. Some might say that my choices are lame but I'm sure those who think so are the stereotypical inbred fuck nut who still watches American Idol and cries when a contestant gets a positive remark from Simon.
It's time for change and we need people who are fed up with the crap that's on TV to step up and bring original ideas to the table. TV shows need to be made for the sake of entertainment and bar of acceptable entertainment is extremely low right now. Let's hope someone can raise that bar...
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
If you're tripping on acid, you're going to love this!
For some reason, I found this animated short extremely profound and artistic
Sunday, August 17, 2008
"That" Guy
Is one of your friends "that" guy who always blames other people and it's never his fault?
Is one of your friends "that" guy who fits the stereotype?
Is one of your friends "that" guy who fits the stereotype?
Friday, August 15, 2008
Today's Complex Video Games
It's been a full 8+ months since my last post and obviously I don't maintain a steady influx of my worthless opinions... Perhaps it's time to start.
I remember a time when I had a Super Nintendo and I spent a Saturday playing Street Fighter with my dad. I couldn't understand why he couldn't do any of the special moves and his lack of improvement baffled me. How hard is it to coordinate a series of pre-planned attacks and virtually kick your opponent's ass with fireballs and uppercuts? Surprisingly, I find myself in my dad's shoes now...
Ever since I got my Playstation 3, I've bought a couple of games but find it difficult to master the games like I used to. There's no doubt that the controls and the complexities of the games have increased dramatically since the simple days of the Super Nintendo but I'm now finding it a bit too complex and frustrating. Nevertheless, kids these days seem to be able to master the skills effortlessly which implies that their hand eye coordination is much more sophisticated than that of my own. Perhaps I'm actually maturing and finding video games less interesting but I have a feeling the former is the primary reason for my sub-par performance.
The good ol' days of Super Mario and James Bond on the Nintendo 64 are long gone. Today we live in a world of Madden, Halo, and Guitar Hero where one can easily suffer from epileptic seizures just trying to follow the goddamn notes on the screen flying by way too fast. I gave up on Guitar Hero a long time ago since I could only finish half the song list in Hard mode. The Expert mode is just insane and my brain lacks the processing power to send signals fast enough to my hands and since I do have a life, I'm not going to sit there and practice a song until I beat it (once again, proof of the lack of interest theory).
These days, I'm content playing Scrabble on Facebook or playing BrickBreaker on my Blackberry--which I suck at--or solving a Sudoku puzzle at my own, controlled pace. I'll still play the occasional Tiger Woods on the PS3 or go online to play Socom but that's the limit of my gaming skills. The Wii was kind of fun for a while, but for our generation, video games are synonymous to fat kids, couch potatoes, and carpal tunnel syndrome. The fact that we have to initiate in physical activity to play a video game is a fucking insult and I will not adhere to such a mockery of the video game culture that our generation established sacrificing numerous chances to get laid in the process.
It kind of sucks to realize that I am no longer capable of mastering the video games of today but spending less time with a controller in my hands have opened up new possibilities for me. Now, instead of shooting aliens in the virtual world, I'm out in the real world shooting the spots off of Bambi and all his woodland critter friends--in a humane manner, of course. Furthermore, when my daughter reaches the age where she wants to watch her gay little DVDs over and over again, I won't have to fight with her and bitch about not being able to play my video games because she's hogging the TV. It seems maturity naturally solves a lot of our problems, unless you're one of those people in their mid 30s, still living in their parent's basement, and playing World of Warcraft all day long...
I remember a time when I had a Super Nintendo and I spent a Saturday playing Street Fighter with my dad. I couldn't understand why he couldn't do any of the special moves and his lack of improvement baffled me. How hard is it to coordinate a series of pre-planned attacks and virtually kick your opponent's ass with fireballs and uppercuts? Surprisingly, I find myself in my dad's shoes now...
Ever since I got my Playstation 3, I've bought a couple of games but find it difficult to master the games like I used to. There's no doubt that the controls and the complexities of the games have increased dramatically since the simple days of the Super Nintendo but I'm now finding it a bit too complex and frustrating. Nevertheless, kids these days seem to be able to master the skills effortlessly which implies that their hand eye coordination is much more sophisticated than that of my own. Perhaps I'm actually maturing and finding video games less interesting but I have a feeling the former is the primary reason for my sub-par performance.
The good ol' days of Super Mario and James Bond on the Nintendo 64 are long gone. Today we live in a world of Madden, Halo, and Guitar Hero where one can easily suffer from epileptic seizures just trying to follow the goddamn notes on the screen flying by way too fast. I gave up on Guitar Hero a long time ago since I could only finish half the song list in Hard mode. The Expert mode is just insane and my brain lacks the processing power to send signals fast enough to my hands and since I do have a life, I'm not going to sit there and practice a song until I beat it (once again, proof of the lack of interest theory).
These days, I'm content playing Scrabble on Facebook or playing BrickBreaker on my Blackberry--which I suck at--or solving a Sudoku puzzle at my own, controlled pace. I'll still play the occasional Tiger Woods on the PS3 or go online to play Socom but that's the limit of my gaming skills. The Wii was kind of fun for a while, but for our generation, video games are synonymous to fat kids, couch potatoes, and carpal tunnel syndrome. The fact that we have to initiate in physical activity to play a video game is a fucking insult and I will not adhere to such a mockery of the video game culture that our generation established sacrificing numerous chances to get laid in the process.
It kind of sucks to realize that I am no longer capable of mastering the video games of today but spending less time with a controller in my hands have opened up new possibilities for me. Now, instead of shooting aliens in the virtual world, I'm out in the real world shooting the spots off of Bambi and all his woodland critter friends--in a humane manner, of course. Furthermore, when my daughter reaches the age where she wants to watch her gay little DVDs over and over again, I won't have to fight with her and bitch about not being able to play my video games because she's hogging the TV. It seems maturity naturally solves a lot of our problems, unless you're one of those people in their mid 30s, still living in their parent's basement, and playing World of Warcraft all day long...
Thursday, December 20, 2007
10,000 Days
I've always had a fascination with round numbers. For example, when my second car's odometer reached 10000 miles, I actually took a picture of it to celebrate the moment. Also, when I know a round number is coming up on the odometer and miss it, I must admit I get a little upset.
Today is another one of those minutely significant days because it's actually my 10,000th day alive. That's a lot of days and I'm not quite sure where it all went but it's kind of scary thing think that on my 20,000th day alive, I'll be close to 55 years of age. I guess you just enjoy the moment and wait for the next significant number to come along and before you know it, it'll be my 20,000th day alive.
Today is another one of those minutely significant days because it's actually my 10,000th day alive. That's a lot of days and I'm not quite sure where it all went but it's kind of scary thing think that on my 20,000th day alive, I'll be close to 55 years of age. I guess you just enjoy the moment and wait for the next significant number to come along and before you know it, it'll be my 20,000th day alive.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Superman
I was flipping through the channels last night and stopped briefly to watch a couple minutes of the new Superman movie that they recently came out with and had an epiphany. I think I figured out why Superman is super.
The way I see it, Superman's "super" powers are not really super powers but rather an exaggerations of a story teller. The reason Superman is "super" is because he is a normal person living amongst a society filled with retards. If you can't tell Superman and Clark Kent apart just because he is or isn't wearing a pair of glasses, then I don't care if you're a renowned journalist for the Daily Planet, you're retarded. This theory also explains why Clark Kent acts so goofy in order to hide his identity; he has to fake a lower level of intelligence in order to blend in.
The "super" powers seem to be an addition in order to make the story more interesting. You couldn't really sell a story about a normal person living in a society where mental retardation is a norm and portraying a character do what regular people do on a daily basis. Perhaps kryptonite symbolizes the autistic people who show signs of genius while still suffering from mental retardation like Rain Man.
To be honest, I'm just sick and tired of Hollywood and their prolonged phase of making all these movies based off of comic books. It was cute back when X-Men came out, but like reality TV, it's lost its magic. It's time to move on.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Satisfaction
It's not much. Rather, it's a pretty boring picture. However, this picture, which shows the main page for the Ariba Sourcing application, depicts our success at AIG. Ironically, I've spent the past month or so trying to get this page to display. Granted, the Sourcing application is only 1 out of the 4 applications of the entire Ariba Spend Management package but we ran into a lot of obstacles trying to get all 4 applications hooked up and running and Sourcing happened to be the last one.
The good news is that most of the problems weren't our fault. As a matter of fact, I don't recall a time we were the cause of a problem. A lot of time was spent just waiting for other tasks to be completed, significantly, database issues (which can be very time consuming due to large file sizes). Well, after numerous days of frustration, communication breakdowns, and suppressing the urge to throw the monitor across the room, we finally reached one of the main stepping stones of our project. I was so happy that I figured it would be worthwhile to mention it in my blog. Besides, I haven't posted anything since I got herpes in Vegas...
Monday, September 11, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
New York - Day 1
It's Labor Day. For most people that means a three day weekend and a chance to sleep in late on a Monday...and perhaps start up the grill for some good eats for lunch or dinner. For me, however, it turned out to be an extremely early start since I was up at 5 AM to catch a flight to NY. I tried to change my flight to an afternoon flight but the Airline Nazis wanted to charge me $800 for the change. Given that the ticket was about $200 to begin with, I consider that robbery. On the bright side, that meant no lines at the security check point, or traffic from LaGuardia to midtown Manhattan.
Since this is my first time in NYC, I didn't know quite what to expect. I've only seen NYC through the eyes of Hollywood film makers but knowing how they like to exaggerate and how full of shit they are sometimes, I didn't really take any of it into consideration.
Surprisingly, I felt quite at home. It felt a lot like walking the streets of Seoul, Korea with all the walking, a whiff of rotting garbage here, and a whiff of serious body odor there. Furthermore, you see a lot of people who dress like clowns and think they're starting the new "thing" in fashion when they look so freakin' retarded. It reminded me of the time I was walking in Seoul and saw a kid with corn rows...have you ever seen an Asian kid with corn rows? It looks freakin' retarded. Nevertheless, it was quite a charming experience and surprisingly, I felt nostalgia for Seoul.
I walked most of midtown down 7th avenue and Broadway just seeing all of the little shops and businesses, including some nomadic ones selling designer bags and beautiful watches. Tempting... Then I decided to get acquainted with the subway system and took a ride down to Wall St. where I enjoyed lunch from a hot dog vendor, looking at where the World Trade Center used to be, and fighting off the diseased, bold pigeons (I'm used to birds being scared of humans but these pigeons have balls. At one point, I waved my hand to scare one off and actually hit the little fucker and it just sat there and looked at me with a "What the fuck was that for?" expression. I didn't want it to call its fellow clan members and attack me so I gave him/her a piece of bread. Then all hell broke loose because all the other nasty ass pigeons came flying in so I had to get the hell out of there. I probably looked really ridiculous but it was fun. I wonder if I need any vaccination…) Then it was back to the hotel to do some work for a couple of hours and after that, I headed north to check out Central Park after dinner. Aside from the smell of horse shit once in a while, it was a pleasant walk. It was definitely cool to be able to go from skyscrapers to a wooded setting in a couple of minutes...almost like warping to a different state.
Since this is my first time in NYC, I didn't know quite what to expect. I've only seen NYC through the eyes of Hollywood film makers but knowing how they like to exaggerate and how full of shit they are sometimes, I didn't really take any of it into consideration.
Surprisingly, I felt quite at home. It felt a lot like walking the streets of Seoul, Korea with all the walking, a whiff of rotting garbage here, and a whiff of serious body odor there. Furthermore, you see a lot of people who dress like clowns and think they're starting the new "thing" in fashion when they look so freakin' retarded. It reminded me of the time I was walking in Seoul and saw a kid with corn rows...have you ever seen an Asian kid with corn rows? It looks freakin' retarded. Nevertheless, it was quite a charming experience and surprisingly, I felt nostalgia for Seoul.
I walked most of midtown down 7th avenue and Broadway just seeing all of the little shops and businesses, including some nomadic ones selling designer bags and beautiful watches. Tempting... Then I decided to get acquainted with the subway system and took a ride down to Wall St. where I enjoyed lunch from a hot dog vendor, looking at where the World Trade Center used to be, and fighting off the diseased, bold pigeons (I'm used to birds being scared of humans but these pigeons have balls. At one point, I waved my hand to scare one off and actually hit the little fucker and it just sat there and looked at me with a "What the fuck was that for?" expression. I didn't want it to call its fellow clan members and attack me so I gave him/her a piece of bread. Then all hell broke loose because all the other nasty ass pigeons came flying in so I had to get the hell out of there. I probably looked really ridiculous but it was fun. I wonder if I need any vaccination…) Then it was back to the hotel to do some work for a couple of hours and after that, I headed north to check out Central Park after dinner. Aside from the smell of horse shit once in a while, it was a pleasant walk. It was definitely cool to be able to go from skyscrapers to a wooded setting in a couple of minutes...almost like warping to a different state.
The following are some thoughts I had during my walks today:
- Wow that woman must be anorexic.
- Look, there's another one.
- I think that one's bulimic.
- There's a lot of Asians here...and I'm not even in Chinatown. Definitely a different scenery from all the rednecks that I'm used to.
- No sweet tea?!? Get the fuck outta here...
- What the hell is that smell? Did I piss myself?
- That dude needs a shower....BAD.
- Oh...she's kind of cute. OH MY GOD, it's a DUDE. Happy thoughts...happy thoughts...bunnies, pumpkin pie, puppies... I need to go take a shower.
- There's a lot more smokers than I expected. I should buy a pack. $8 for a pack? WTF?
- [While waiting for a train]I wonder if that guy is just sleeping or if he's dead. I should poke him and find out.
On another note, I actually got 4 requests to take a picture and one couple actually asked me for directions. I'm not sure if that means I look like a local but I definitely had no problem fitting in. Like I mentioned before, it felt like home.
Tomorrow is the start of the main reason I'm here. Work. I'm not sure if I'll have much time to explore NY as much as I did today but I'm sure I'll experience a whole lot of cool things in the next 5 months. I just need to watch how much I drink here so I don't end up with a tranny.
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