The Sound of Your Voice
This weekend, someone told me that they hated the sound of their voice. I replied with a much too flippant “everyone hates the sound of their voice.”
Flippant or not, I think my response was kind of true. Our voices sound different to us than they do to everyone else. When we hear a recording of our voice, we are likely to have an Yzma moment. 
Yes, I’m sad to say. That is your voice. Nothing you can do about it except get used to it. Because you want to know who doesn’t think your voice sounds weird? Everyone else. Many of them have been listening to you for years and do you know why none of them have complained about how horrible you sound when you speak? Read More…
Shit that Pissed me Off – 4/10
Police Officer Shot a Man in the Back and was Caught Lying About it
If you click through to the link, there is video of a man being shot to death. That’s important to know because you might not want to watch such a thing.
Early reports about this incident indicated that the victim tried to take the officer’s taser and the officer shot him in self-defense. That was the story the officer repeated over and over again. And it was a lie.
If I said I didn’t like ice cream, it would also be a lie. A harmless lie. So when the officer lied to save his skin, it’s kind of like that, right?
Even if the victim had tried to take a taser before the video starts, it is obvious he posed no threat to the officer when he was running away and eight bullets were fired at his back.
Without that video, the officer would not be facing murder charges. Thousands of people would be telling us that we weren’t there so we couldn’t know what really happened. We should take the word of the police officer because why would he lie?
I don’t know. Maybe for the same reasons as anyone else?
Shit that Pissed me off – 3/20
Prosperity Gospel Preacher Needs Money To Buy a Private Jet
Creflo Dollar – which I confess is the best name for a pastor ever – needs a new private jet so he can fly around the world bringing the good word to people who can’t afford proper nutrition.
He just needs 200,000 people to reach into their pockets and give 300 dollars apiece. When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound like quite so much money. I mean, you’re really just giving it to god. Through an intermediary, sure, but Dollar will make sure every cent gets to god.
He might use a few thousand dollars to pay his gardener but other than that, all the money goes to god.
Well, I mean, he’ll put in a good word for you with god. Not personally, of course, because 200,000 is a lot of names. But god will know.
What Dollar is doing is using god to justify his lavish lifestyle and getting the faithful to foot the bill.
Do we all think Dollar will use that new airplane exclusively for spreading the gospel or do we think it might get used for a family vacation or two?
Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/13
Hasbro Seems to Have Forgotten Someone
Hasbro has announced they are releasing a line of 24 Star Wars figures to coincide with the digital re-release of the films. That is awesome because I can buy them for my kid. And then play with them myself.
However, they seem to have forgotten the most badass character in the original trilogy.
Nope. Han is there. So is Chewbacca.
Do I have to hide some plans inside a droid to help you figure it out?
Where, I ask you, is Princess Leia? They can include a two fucking battle droids but can’t seem to include one of the most important characters from the original trilogy?
Memo to Hasbro: nobody gives a shit about battle droids. Nobody.
I realize the Star Wars universe is not full of women but if you can find room for Padme Amidala in your 24 figures, you can sure as hell find room for Leia.
Gaming With Kids
Tabletop gaming has become a major thing these days. Recently, we took an inventory of the tabletop games in our house and discovered we have over 150. We’ve acquired at least ten more games since then.
We’ve also purchased expansion packs for games we already have but I’m not going to count those because they aren’t new games.
Number of games we’ve gotten rid of in the same amount of time: zero.
As you can see, we have something of a problem. We are quite literally running out of shelves to put all the games.
The obvious solution is to attempt to play every game in our house at least once.
I know what you are thinking and no, the solution is not to dispose of the games that we’ve owned for over ten years and never played once. That would be allowing the game to win.
There are two wrinkles in this plan. The first is probably obvious – when we like a game, we want to play it more than once. I, for instance, could spend an entire weekend playing “Legendary” and still want to play it again.
Because the rest of my family does not feel the same way I am, I think rightly, considering having them replaced.
Shit that Pissed me off – 1/2/15
United and Orbitz are Suing a Guy for Exploiting a Loophole
I just keep thinking if the dude is exploiting a loophole in your system and you want him to stop, you could just close the fucking loophole.
Instead of figuring out that problem, they are suing a guy who isn’t making any money. He just outsmarted them. What an asshole, right?
I said sue the smug fucker! Why would I want to hire him?
They have lawyers sitting around waiting for something to do. It’s probably cheaper for them to threaten this kid than it is for them to figure out how to fix the gap in their own procedures.
Or they could just accept that some people are going to get a cheaper fare and stop giving out free pop on flights. I mean, they’ll do that eventually anyway, right?
Shit that Pissed me off – 12/19
Sony Pulls The Interview Then Paramount Pulls Team America
I’m one of a comparatively small number of people who has actually seen The Interview and I’m frustrated because the movie is funny and now it is up in the air if anyone else will ever see it.
When people accuse Sony of cowardice, I think they fail to understand the extent of the hack that was perpetrated against them. Besides, why put a movie into release if nobody is going to show it? Remember, the whole idea behind the film industry is to make a profit. You don’t make a profit if your movie is only showing in five theaters.
Paramount, on the other hand, shouldn’t give a flying fuck about allowing exhibitors to show a film that was released years ago. I have no idea why they went belly up on this one. The only theaters showing it were theaters that wanted to show it and didn’t give a crap about terroristic threats that are considered unfounded. So let ’em show it. What the hell?
America! Fuck Yeah! Well….fuck maybe….
Anyone out there who thinks terrorism doesn’t work should use this attack as exhibit one. Whoever did this torpedoed a film. Two films, really. The terrorists won this round with a remarkably minimal effort.
And hey, if this is really North Korea getting a stick up its ass about a less than flattering portrayal of their glorious leader, I have a really good idea. They can make a film about some North Korean journalists trying to kill a US President.
I guarantee that no matter how much effort they put into making Obama look like a buffoon, he still won’t look any worse than the average Tea Partier’s concept of him.
Shit That Pissed Me Off – 11/14
I didn’t know who this guy was until I clicked the wrong link. Now I know all about him.
I would hope you don’t need to be a feminist to think he’s a complete sleaze bag who deserves to be maced on a regular basis. He makes money holding seminars telling guys how to be awful to their partners. He doesn’t respect women and he also doesn’t respect men because he thinks guys are supposed to treat women like shit because they are women.
Just look at her sitting there being a woman! How dare she?
Thing is, he may not even be the asshole he pretends to be. He just says this stuff to get lonely suckers to come to his seminars.
Then you have the guys who pay money because they want to be like the person he pretends to be. You have to be a pretty awful human being for this kind of thing to be worth your time.
Holy shit guys, it isn’t that hard. You want women to like you? Be fucking nice to them. And don’t get angry if they don’t want to have sex with you because that isn’t what they are there for.
Shit That Pissed Me Off – 10/31
Rich Woman is Upset that Poor Children Might Be Trick-or-Treating in her Neighborhood
This letter to Dear Prudence has to be a joke, right? I mean there probably are people who are this awful but most of them wouldn’t say it out loud, right?
Sadly, I expect this lady is real and she resents “poor” people coming to her house for the good candy. And by “poor,” I expect she means middle class suburban folks and not a bunch of unwashed inner city kids who aren’t worthy to sell her kids a hamburger at McDonald’s.
Her good candy is for the rich little boys and girls! Why is that so hard for the other 99% to understand? If they get full-sized Kit-Kat bars on Halloween instead of the fun size that they deserve, they will start expecting rich people to provide them everything! Isn’t it enough that they are job providers?
Get the fun sized candy bars, Howard! The poor kids are coming!
Holy shit, lady. If you have to hand out an extra hundred candy bars, are you suddenly going to miss a Porsche payment? Will your underprivileged children be unable to join you in Rome for Christmas? If you have such a problem giving to people who make less than you, just turn off your light so the kids from the rich families that aren’t as rich as yours don’t come to your house either.
I wish this lady had included her home address so everyone could go to her house this Halloween. We should all give her a fucking candy bar. Only the fun size though. We can’t afford the good stuff.
Shit That Pissed Me Off – 10/24
Felicia Day Speaks Up About GamerGate and is Almost Immediately Doxxed
For those unfamiliar with the term, doxxing is when people take personal information (like home address and private e-mail accounts) and share them with everyone on the internet. The intent is to encourage others to harass the individual in question either online or in person.
Because people are assholes.
Chris Kluwe wrote a profanity ridden rant against GamerGaters earlier in the week. Was his contact information splashed all over the internet? Of course not.
What is interesting about the Gamergate phenomenon is that they claim this issue is not about women in gaming and yet when women speak up, they suffer harassment almost immediately. I’m not saying Kluwe didn’t get called names. He probably did.
The difference, though, is Kluwe (and Wil Wheton) were called names. Day had her personal information tweeted out within an hour.
This is not Felicia Day’s house. Or Chris Kluwe’s. Because where they live is none of your damn business.
Now I’m fairly certain a brief internet search could have yielded her home address. That information may be private but it is hard to protect. Her personal e-mail would take a little more digging but probably isn’t too hard to get. Privacy is an illusion the internet is rapidly dispelling.
None of that changes the fact doxxing is an asshole move. The only purpose is to harass the victim rather than engage in civil discourse.
GamerGate is not about ethics. It is about being pissy because female gamers (and their allies) would like a few games for themselves. It also has an unoriginal and stupid name.
Grail Diary 