The Ottermanempire.com

I’m going to start posting items from my work blog onto this one since I get more exposure here.

A couple of items appeared on my  reader in close proximity that  suggested that iPhone isn’t just a neat phone but it’s also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.

It’s also the death of common sense least for  the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams?  If you don’t have immediacy it’s not radio.  Sure you can  DL the playlist  1st over night then just add in the  hosts  locally  may work, but  why bother  what are we trying to achieve here?   Replication of radio? Why if it’s so bad, would we want to?

Apples  target… 10 million  phones.

Yep that kills radio’s    more than 1 unit per person.   > 300 million.
that kills  Nintendo’s ( just one  companies) 20 million  DS base.

It doesn’t even kill XM/ Sirius  merge  with  17.3 million paying users.  It’s a bit late to walk by the  bleeding corpse of radio  and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest.  That’s the perception of radio anyway.   Sadly it doesn’t jibe with these results.

Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)

20 times more people than  Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio  Two controls,  no computer needed to keep it in sync  and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.

As to handheld gaming?  Would you  pay  $70 a month for your kid to play games on it?  Beggars belief really that it’s being seriously considered as a question. 

Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone  related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?

Batman was wonderful. I’ll get to him later. What was piss poor, as nearly all of our visits to the theaters are nowadays is the constant distraction of people texting and talking on the phone.

It’s so bad I have to ask them to stop. I don’t like to. Don’t get me wrong it’s not a embarrassment thing it’s a real worry that someone’s asshole boyfriend, husband or even worse parents will cause a scene which turns ugly and I can’t afford ugly.

I can usually live with it, Batman is 2 hours 30 and tonight I just couldn’t. So these rude asses are bad enough. The theaters are worse. I’ve been pretty loyal to Harkins since they don’t have no firearms signs and their popcorn adornments are great. They don’t seem to be a stingy on the light and soundproofing as the AMC ones out on the periphery ( THX my ass) On the occasions I’ve complained it’s been more annoying than just walking out.

They claim policy is walk 5 mins in , then 15 mins at the start to intervene with people on their phones. Er no, I had 3 “fireflies” in my sight nearly the entire time, then the calls. These people take money to provide an experience that we’re getting close to , in all but time, doing in the home. To our mind no one checked, or if they did it was cursory. I think I’m tired of paying a premium for a shitty service. Why has no theater chain created a tier of guaranteed interuption free cell phone removed clients? It should pay for itself all the people I’ve talked to go to less movies than they want to based on the climate at most theaters. I’ll let you know if we get any response out of Harkins. As you can see from their contact page email is not an option

Harkins Theatres - Contact Harkins

Fans of things Whedonesque  have got a lot to be thankful for.  This show may be instructive on proving that  Unions still have a use That point is  that whenever a sea change in technology ,be it media or  improvements to manufacturing , education ( yeah right)  they  are always present in the role of societal Canute.   I will grant you their role had value back in the early days but    in the latter half of the 20C it’s been all about maintaining their power from that point  on , the organization  uber alles.  I digress but this show is a product of the WGA  strike and rumblings on  who gets paid  what  in relation to online content from both sag and aftra.  There’s a great post on that here from the closest thing to an objectivist I think you’ll find in media ( I saw closest as I am agnostic about their existence;)  

Anyway this is a mini web series , three episodes, and other than  note that anyone I know  already has this , so , so   who the hell am I telling?   Frak that .  

Think live action Venture brothers with a tad of Pinky  tossed in.  Seeing Captain Mal, er Hammer  again  rocks as the “good “  guy that wants to take the heroine  on a tour of a VW’s rear , you know somewhere uncomfortable was great. It’s not like most web shows , ephemeral to the power of mayfly   , you truly can  watch  and sing along more times that may be healthful:)   Don’t be horrible,  buy this , don’t rip it off as I want to see more, more more!

Daddy you can let go now…..

At a recent Father-Daughter Purity Ball, the girls ranged from college
age to a tiny 4-year-old dressed in purple who climbed into her
father’s arms to be carried

I wonder if they take a toddler to AA too? These people , these people that define innocence yet take their fucking 4 year old ( is there irony in there folks? ) to events like this. I am nowhere near taking Dobh, or myself , to a fetish ball in the near future but maybe I need to take a play from my ‘moral superiors’.

I can only hope that they are trying to create a super sexually fucked up batch of women to compete with the Catholic education / Baptist pastor’s daughter that have been highly reviewed by some of my friends.

I swear my fellow diners at hospital canteens look in better shape than
the mass that “meats” for late lunch at this location. This wasn’t
just a gray tide but a few human buoys had popped in too. Please
withhold the ” don’t be so judgmental” holier than though attitude ,
this is a review after all.

Lately I have been working
remotely ( or remotely working) on the Friday so I’ve been going out
on Fridays for lunch since it’s all “new” to me. The same places that
I eat out at in the evening often have vastly different characters
during the day and this Black Angus throws it into sharp relief. For
example at night I have never been served stale bread.

Have a
wide range of ages , group sizes and noise levels and there’s some
life in the place. Chilis that just opened up nearby and seems to have
kidnapped the life leaving a quiet, genteel even , location that
would be more fitting in the deep south when you don’t have anything
better to do. So far this is the only local place that exceeded my
hour.

Food’s ok , fitting with the price range and the
burgers are well appointed, cooked to request and relatively
tasteful. Fries tepid and it feels likelike the minimums you have to
do to keep the blue rinse and Caddy driving class happy is all they
are about. The only thing hip about this place is the replacement
joints.

Coffee seems to have been held on life support and
brought out when some unsuspecting fool that refuses to believe in
coffee only being a morning drug. Usually the surroundings don’t bug
me but it felt like the Hometown Buffet , which I can live with until
you give me stale bread past it’s sell by date which I fear may a
fitting epitaph for this place within daylight hours

More reviews over at Yelp.

One of the original cast  for Now never funny, er Never not funny ( buy  season 1 disk it’s really good  )started a podcast sixteen episodes back.   I forgot to mention it to people.    If you don’t like casual vulgarity , talk of violence towards those that deserve it .

If things like

“I’d stick my dick in a fence just to get it away from Lucy “ 

re Lucille Ball   in  a made  up piece re “the joker”" Cesare Romero  trying to hit on Desi.  His mind doesn’t just wander, it books cruises and  circumnavigates the Earth. 

The show iss deeper than this of course but  I’m  trying to make the point that  if you believe that truth can only  be found in civil company with no naughty words then  please avoid this and go back to your Marmaduke comic collection

Mike Schmidt Comedy - Podcast

I can see a JoCo song  / mashup for this little guy.   But I digress.

It’s really going to be the future soon.  Wall-E  is one future but let’s me just say that  I have nothing to add to the   97% rating that he’s enjoying over there on Rotten Tomatoes.

Why this movie works for me.

Wall-E has more character than the prior Pixar incarnations because you come to him pure, he doesn’t need to fit into car shape, rat shape, fish shape or any of the pre existing personalities from the toy box. 700 years of exposure to our ephemera and the worst that happen to him is show tunes. ( maybe the right wing folks had a point;) )   Wall-e  being seen as  antithetic  to the humans that made him is a point made in many  reviews  has been annoying me.

I  have to be simplistic here and claim that the  US division of thought  falls into right /left wing ideologies ( basically the same fundamental idiocy that reaches divergent conclusions on how it’s best to steal from others for their own benefit, a setup you may  know  better as democracy.) 

This movie has been seen as  a massively pro environment/ anti capitalist movie  by both ends of the moebius strip  so I find myself on familiar ground  in the contrarian position that both sides are wrong.

So in my usual  Socratic ( that means avoiding having to actually solve shit;) )  manner  I have some questions and observations about both side.

1) How is this movie anti capitalist?  The  monopoly position is not practically achievable in capitalism without the intervention of the state and BnL didn’t get that way without help.

2)  How is Wall-e not a reflection on those that created him, how can we be the bad guys in this piece?   Humans  made it to  space,  they made a fricking society that looks pretty close to socialism ( cradle to grave all needs met)  and it pretty much looked like what the  left has wanted to sell us for decades.  They also tried to solve the problem. 

3) The bit I really don’t like.   Farming. We get to the stars  I  and the idea that  we circumvent millennia of improvements to go back to  nature. As if to think that  farming is a default human condition.

I was brought up on a farm have a non romantic view of animals(  unlike the Welsh) and have managed to escape the daily need to hunt food, shelter and the myriad other niceties of living pre dentistry , pre anesthesia  and pre Tetris.  The environment, would it help to call it location? in Wall-e is a background and necessary for his existence, character development.  Basically the framework isn’t built to hang your ideas of the world on and  both sides do this movie a disservice by trying.

To end on a rant.

People that find this liberal really need to get a dictionary and perspective. The root of conservative means what again? It’s more than a greeny trope and can just as easily be seen as an indictment on a socialized system that keeps people stupid , fat and reliant on the state ( corp) from cradle to grave. Seriously politics are what’s stopping most of you from enjoying one of the more touching love stories/ characters in the last few years.

Why bother saving our place on this planet if this is the kind of thought that we’re preserving?

Not April first

Doubts over the veracity of this brought up in the comments but. The state has ran tests on the population re syphilis , radiation and LSD amongst other things so is it any wonder people could believe this.

Washington Times - Politics, Breaking News, US and World News - “Want some torture with your peanuts?” by Aviation Security

I used to shop here, used to. Sadly I can’t take em seriously anymore. The same bullshit I saw with local atheist groups, e.g Bush’s god =bad, Kerry’s , Gore, Edwards and now Obama’s is fine. Suggests that there’s a lack of ethical rigor from a store that seems to be in favour of principle over profit. That Obama has a peace symbol sticker for the O in the name is hilarity itself that an overt theist is a poster child for the reality based community is desperatly sad. Crazy.. is crazy.

Don’t Make Me Come Down There sticker
$2.00

Don’t Make Me Come Down There sticker. Just a subtle warning from the
Almighty, to his so-called followers, lest they continue spreading
hatred and division in His name!

New Products for Freethinker science lovers darwinfish holders civil right workers and many others

I love the nimby crowd, the people that  want to save the world but..  are too busy to even save themselves from coming off as people  that had  an entirely reasonable objection to the construction but just couldn’t leave it at that.  Oh no we have to make this into something  bigger. Something stupid. 

We were planning a move to Prescott   or Payson , somewhere with a P at least,and it’s nice to see that  they have the same proportion of nut that Phoenix has.

Reasons not to have water in the desert.

• The metal tank might collapse in an earthquake or be blown up by terrorists. (  seismically unlikely , not impossible. I can’t see the houses being unharmed by any  quake that takes out the tank) Terrorists?  Oh get bent. The terrorists are too busy running speed cameras and checking lawns for improper  growth. 

• A youth camp below the tank could be inundated, with kids dying. (that’s one big tank to have water high enough to drown kids)

• Homeowner insurance in the area doesn’t cover flood damage.( then buy some, it can RAIN you know. )

• Cellphone transmitters emit dangerous radio waves. ( prove it )

• The antenna cluster might be hit by aircraft or require an unsightly beacon to warn pilots. (  yeah  another  20 ft or so makes the difference)

• Increased water pressure could burst pipes in local homes. ( maybe, a tiny amount, but  aren’t the homes  built to code?

• Use of explosives could crack residential walls. ( depends where they are)

• The whole thing will obscure "viewsheds," places with scenic or historic value. ( like? )

Prescott neighbors fighting water tank, cell tower

As you can  see mostly  BS reasons. The article is great and you can get gems such as this.

"It’s proven that our property values will decline 30 percent if that 85-foot cell tower goes up. . . . I got that on the Internet."

Yeah  well there’s lots of things you can  get online including unsolicited abuse. Bullshit 100%  craptastically  untrue.

I love that the people that pay the state are at war with them and have to pay the price in taxes to the city whose  attorneys fight against you..  It’s cool , fricking cool you have to admire how good this system is  .. for those that run it:D  

Apology on the cards as police pup picture sparks warning over offence to Muslims - Scotsman.com News

A POLICE force has apologised over concerns that an advertisement featuring a German shepherd pup could be offensive to the Islamic community. As part of a campaign to publicise its new non-emergency telephone number, Tayside Police used a picture of a black puppy, Rebel, on postcards to be distributed throughout the east coast region.

Now the rest of the story From a local paper.

Doesn’t it look like the Police apologized to one man One councillor  but  let’s see how that story played over here in the USA , the Freedom center of the world.  Fucking pigs never apologized to me for an baseless allegation but hey  I don’t  hack off people’s heads that offend me in the name of my invisible friend.

I just make fun of them online. 

Ah yes I remember this game, Mikrogen’s “everyone’s a wally” but not everyone this weekend was a Wall*e as Wanted took down some serious money too.

Interview with director on ,Daywatch, his prior movie Wanted 

I have realized that a good exercise for any political philosophy  would be to see  how well it works on the camping scale.  I’ve just been through that this weekend with Creddy.   

Simple Idea.    People say in advance what they are going to do , what they will bring.

We had the Sat AM breakfast which meant that Friday night we’d not have to do anything other than eat.   I wish.  You see just because someone makes an offer to do a meal  you shouldn’t expect them to have the pots, pans and ,er , oh  the  goddamn stove available to do it.   Luckily we brought two, why? let’s just say we have a  pretty good handle on  this kind of thing and spent more money on a stove and gas to accommodate a shortfall that came up earlier. I doubt it will be repeated unless we’re doing all the food / cooking since buying at the last minute is way too costly on a few people. 

Additionally we  ended up doing extra cooking that negated the entire point of organizing it. E.g we rest on the meals we’re not doing, ha!  

Next.

A disappointing  trip to J G guns in Prescott.  We used to love driving up there for food at one of the local eateries, buy ye olde  gun, come back happy.

Over the last year though it ceased being fun and the counter on a Saturday seemed to be more competition than commerce. 

Creddy has a full post over here and while we thought that she was being ignored at the show in Phoenix a year back this one was far more obvious. I can’t think of a single person with a passing interest in guns that  we’ve not told about the store, e.g it being worth the drive, but those days have come to an end.

I don’t know a lot about the older 9mm Smith / Wesson autos  so her asking what differences in the  model numbers they had was perfectly valid since, er that’s their job to know. DA?  DAO?   Mag disconnect?   Sorry but you only get to pull off a “superior”  we know more about guns than you attitude when you back it up with something.Anyway see her post for the rest of this it’s quite annoying.

next Up Wanted!