Patrick’s Rants

Some of you may remember back in November I started a site titled Liberals for Truth. The idea was to counter the right wing attacks, provide a forum, an outlet for individuals who consider themselves to be liberal without the attacking nature of some sites on the internet. (more…)

If you have seen Office Space you are very familiar with TPS reports. Did you know that TPS has been around for longer than Office Space? TPS has been used by tax preparation company H&R Block since at least the mid to late 90s and possibly even earlier. But did you know that a real company started using TPS because of the Office Space influence?
There are definately funny ones out there:
The United States Geological Survey uses Time and Attendance sheets (T&A).
Small collection… some not so funny others definately better.

When I watched the movie “Sideways”, I couldn’t help but yell at the opening of the DVD. The opening was essentially a commercial about downloading movies from the internet, calling anyone who downloads a “pirate”.
First off, pirating and bootlegging have to do with people making money from selling illegal copies of movies. Copyright infringement is illegal, it’s covered under the United States code, USC 17. However the movie studios and the musical recording industry (mostly the music industry) have turned to suing Suzy Downloader claiming thousands of dollars in “losses” due to illegal file sharing. The fact of the matter is Suzy would have never bought the songs she has on her hard drive or if she would have it would be far fewer than she actually downloaded. Truth be told they only “lost” a few hundred dollars in revenue, if that. Of course they use a different accounting style to figure out how big their losses are. Even Enron and Worldcom were not as creative with accounting as the record industry is. Of course no one is snooping into their books because they are showing losses instead of propping up income.
These companies continue to add software, restrictions on use of music and movies, hard coding of our DVD players and collect a small royalty on each and every blank CD sold whether it will be used for music or data. The companies that continue to treat me like a thief, reminding me not to “steal” their “Intellectual Property” will see fewer and fewer of my dollars. I don’t download music or movies. I like buying the DVDs with extra features as opposed to downloading screeners (copies specifically for reviewers and Academy voters) but the legal copies are the ones calling me a criminal.
To the music industry I say, stop ripping of the artists and stop turning out “boy band” crap. The movie studios have not been as bad yet - presumably due to the long download times, but you keep running ads showing all the people who will “lose their jobs” due to Pirates and I will stop watching movies too. Put more of those don’t steal ads at the beginning of your DVDs and I will return them. Accuse me of stealing and I stop buying. Next time I actually go to the theater I’m going to ask for my money back if you play a “don’t be a pirate” commercial at the beginning of the film. I will tell all my friends to not go to this film as well. I am not paying to be accused of stealing. I am paying for content, the right to enjoy the film while I’m watching it, to take a break from reality for a while. You keep calling your customers thieves they will eventually begin acting like thieves or drop you from their lives. Either way you lose.
Older copyright rant

The movie sideways has been credited with increasing tourism in California and boosting sales of Pinot Noir. Not only that, it’s a pretty good film. I’m not showing it to my kids due to the nudity and sexual content which gives it an “R” rating, but I will recommend it to friends and even my mom (but I won’t watch it with her due to the aforementioned “R” rating grabbers)
In the movie, two friends take a trip through wine country in California stopping at different local wineries for tasting and critiquing of the newest bottles.
As the movie progresses we find the main characters Miles and Jack - played by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church - having dinner at a local restaurant. Miles, hung up on an ex-wife, fails to notice the obvious flirtings of Maya played by Virgina Madsen.
( Virginia has one of those faces that I know I have seen before. As a matter of fact when I first saw her I was distracted from the movie trying to figure out where I had seen here before…. then it hit me she was in V… the mini series. She played a character named Julie Parrish. Funny a google search and her bio show nothing about V (but more than 50 films and tons of TV appearances). Eh- anyway. Once I got over trying to figure out who she was I got back into the film.)

Jack treats the week as his last chance to jump into the sack with someone other than his fiance and ends up with Sandra Oh - Under the Tuscan Sun, Gray’s Anatomy - a wine pouring biker chick.
Miles and Jack end up having the adventure of a week, drinking wine playing golf and generally having a blast just before Jack’s wedding. Of course Miles is fighting not just the hang up over his ex-wife but depression, a dismal record of novel rejections, his snobbish obsession with Pinot Noir and his inability to “control” Jack. As their week drags on one wonders if Jack really will get married and if Miles will open his eyes up and see Maya’s flirtations.
If you haven’t seen it I recommend popping up some corn, popping in the movie and hitting play. To get even more into it, grab a few differerent bottles of Pinot and at least one Merlot and taste along with the movie

If you haven’t seen the commercials with the guys sitting in the car talking about what they are ordering and eating you are definately missing the better of the two series. The newer versions with some couple sitting at Sonic talking about “meat based dressing”, blackened sauce (which just sounds wrong to me), and trips to New Orleans (that the woman refuses to discuss with the man who is presumably her husband) just don’t hold a candle to the guy ripping the door handle off and handing it to his buddy when the sauce on the sandwich is too hot for him, the led carb counter installed in the car and the brain freeze commercials. The format just doesn’t play with this middle aged couple sitting and talking about ordering extra sandwiches because they are going to the guy’s parents’ house for dinner.
Sonic, either bring back the wimpy loser guys or drop the format. Wimpy loser couples are just sad in a way that’s not funny.

On the May 05, 2005 episode of the Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Jay brought out the latest American Idol to be kicked Scott Savol. The thing is I’m sure he looks like the guy whose video was floating around the internet lip syncing that foreign song… of course I have no links and the Today Show (where I saw the video) seemed to not have the relevant links either… oh well.
Jay brought out Scott to give him a consolation prize, one of three from a big wheel. The prizes on the wheel were Lunch with movie star, Dinner with a sports star or Breakfast with a member of the Royal Family. And of course the wheel was not rigged.
Naturally the giant spin that Scott put on the wheel caused it to spin a whole 1/3 of the way around to land on Breakfast with a member of the Royal Family. I figured that would be Gilbert Godfried in drag playing the queen, but lo and behold the Creepy King arrived with his overly large breakfast sandwich. Yikes.
Jay then sent them off to “get to know each other better in the back of the van”
Just keep saying egg and meat and cheese, and meat and cheese…..

Ok… I’ve linked to the pro and anti Proposition 100 web sites.
Now I’m going to tell you why I’m voting against the so called big box ordinance.
The Information pamphlet mailed out by the city is full of the usual Wherases…. but I was deeply disturbed at the content. Whereas WalMart might want to sell groceries - heaven forbid!. Whereas we want to create a “pedestrian community”, etc, etc. Give me a break. This ordinance is about continuing to prop up the failing Unions¹ (oh- major funding provided by UFCW to the Yes side) and grocery stores. Half of the Wherases contain the word grocery or supermarket. (more…)

Ok my TV reviews are normally about shows on TV, but I just have to mention that my local NBC affiliate blows chunks. Granted this is a small town and the budget is smaller, but they can’t even keep the volume at the same level. During an evening of watching shows on NBC I have to turn the volume way up to be able to hear the show I want to watch. Then the commercials come on and I have to turn the volume way down - just to keep the volume even.
The worst offenses are the Nightly News, the Tonight Show, and the Sunday evening line up of Law and Order Criminal Intent and Crossing Jordan. I have to be a remote jockey, and truthfully I tend to turn the shows off often enough that the fluctuating volume could be considered a cause of NBC losing market share during these times.
They have an email address that they advertise for a news segment called “Thanks to Teachers” which routes through the NBC affiliate in Phoenix. Want to follow up on a local news story that you missed or only caught the last part of (cause the volume was turned way down due to the commercials rattling the windows)? Don’t bother looking it up on the internet. While many stations offer online news supplimented by advertising, looking up knaztv2.com redirects you to the Phoenix NBC affiliate’s site a total freaking waste of time when it comes to Flagstaff news. If they had a Flagstaff page it would be helpful… but they don’t.
It’s just a shame that they are the only “real” local news broadcast.

Some of you already know that I work the weekend overnight shift at a hotel here in Flagstaff. Friday night, well really Saturday morning since it was 12:20am, a young man staggered into the lobby of the hotel. He began what is unfortunately a very familiar line which usually leads to the speaker asking for money. “I’m traveling from (somewhere in California) to New Mexico, and got off track”, etc., etc.
While this isn’t normally noteworthy, what is funny is that this man who must have been somewhere in his 20s claimed that not only was he an “executive at one of these hotels or motels around here,” but that Carmen Electra is his “biological mother”. According to the link Carmen Electra was born in 1972, which would mean that she would have had to give birth to this man in something like 1980 - when she would have been like 8 years old.
The other funny thing is that he was vague about the hotel he was an “executive” at “either this hotel or one of these hotels or motels around here”.
Based upon my encounter I would have believed it more if he said that Jack Daniels was his biological father.