All Your Base Are Belong To Us — The Kip Lange Homepage

I would like to make clear from the outset that I HATE MICROSOFT. This will show you where I’m going. I despise Microsoft. I was an avid Macintosh user until the lack of software literally drove me from my Mac LC III to an earlyish Dell of limited power. Microsoft makes buggy operating systems, drives out competition with unfair monopolistic practices, and consistently delivers software that is under-expectations and under-performing. Sony makes beautiful things that work but which sometimes require maintenance. Wonderful HDTVs, wonderful stereo equipment, and, at least they used to make, the monitor and other such equipment for the Macintosh.

Why should their damn gaming consoles be any different?

I am a self-admitted PS3 “fanboy”. I love the Playstation. Always have. From the second I tried Resident Evil 2 on it on a PS1 (guy who showed it to me warned he had given up sex for the game), I was hooked. For years, I lived in the Playstation Eden — until Microsoft popped it’s snake’s head up to offer us all an apple.

I will not say the XBox is a piece of shit. Perhaps it is. All I know is that I will not play it. It doesn’t have the games library I want. The controller is clunky as hell. And it’s made by MSFT.

So now MSFT is gloating because the PS3 has been delayed until November 11. They seem quite certain that if they can sell 10 million consoles before Sony gets to market, they will be the “dominant system of this generation”.

Here’s why they won’t, and why they might:

Rabid fans of the PS3, like me, have been saving up cash in the hopes that the Spring release date originally released by Sony was true. The closer we’ve gotten to Spring without hearing anything or seeing any commercials on TV, the more we began to accept the fact that Sony is probably delaying the console. So I doubt it was really a shock to anyone when we found out it was going to be a wait until November. Oh, people aren’t happy, but…we’ll wait. Or will we?

Microsoft is betting that we won’t. Microsoft is betting that the wife is out of town and we want a quick blowjob from a gross hooker — a gross hooker who will only offer HD-DVD as a peripheral (way to rush to market, MSFT). But we’ve got the money saved up for that glorious night of romance when the wife returns. Are we really going to blow it on a reach-around from Microsoft’s generation-and-a-half-step console?

Okay. I’ll admit it. I’m tempted. But who wouldn’t be tempted when the ads for Fight Night are running right in your face? Your PS2 boxing game don’t look like dat, do it?

But for now, I’m just tempted. About as tempted as I was to get an XBox as a second system back when I had the cash and was wondering what Halo is like.

It remains to be seen whether I, or the rest of my stupid cohorts, jump on board XBox’s ship since Sony left us treading water for another year. Because chances are we’re not going to buy both of them, at least not for a long while.

/rant

Ahhh. When I figure out an easy answer to an annoying problem, I love to share it. I have one of the newer Comcast Motorola boxes with a DVR. Tonight, it was going along fine, recording the series I’ve plugged into it. However, one show wouldn’t play. I got a black screen on playback and a differing number of minutes shown as length each time I played it, and if I tried to exit, I got the “Delete/Do Not Delete?” prompt. I tried deleting. The box returned something along the lines of, “Cannot delete file while in use. Close file and try again. Error CIU.”

I went ahead and restarted the box. Same problem.

The answer? Don’t call the techs, they’ll likely suggest a new box. Pain in the ass. Just unplug the thing altogether, let it sit for a minute (oh yes, the glorious “power cycle” ACTUALLY WORKS FOR SOMETHING), plug it back in — you’re going to have to wait a few minutes to download the menu and the guide and such, but don’t worry, you’ll get it — now, go into the DVR menu and delete the offending program. Works like a charm.

And a good night to all of YOU. 🙂

Now, don’t ask me how — it’s complex and boring, like myself — but my tooth problem has led to thoughts about friendships.

What thoughts, you ask? No, actually, you asked, “Kip, please write something interesting, for the love of God!” but I refuse to oblige. Er. Anyway.

Friendships are like elastic bands. Some bands are stronger, some bands are weaker. All of them stretch over time. Sometimes they break. I’m specifically thinking, in this case, of a girl who used to be a good friend of mine, who I recently saw, and when I let her out of my car at the end of the night (nothing exciting, just dinner, S&M, and…oh, right, no, the S&M was with that hobo I took to see Brokeback Mountain…just dinner, I guess) I realized to myself that she was probably walking right out of that car and right out of my life altogether at the same time. And I think I may have been right. I think the band snapped.

There are some people who you keep as friends forever. I have enough of these to be very grateful. Now, they’re located all over the world, but that doesn’t matter. Neither does the fact that I don’t communicate with them as often as I used to matter. It’s a simple fact of just knowing these people could pop up out of nowhere, hang out with you, and nothing would be very much different. You’d feel just as comfortable as you ever did. Marriage won’t change it. Kids won’t change it. You’re just…friends.

But now I worry about those bands, in retrospect, after viewing the one that snapped (maybe it didn’t, maybe it’s just stretched real thin). I count myself lucky for the ones I have, but I wonder if marriage will snap some of them. Or kids. Or a big career change.

And as for making new friends, it’s just something that slows down after a while. You can still do it, but…it just doesn’t happen as much. Once you’re into your thirties, as I and my cohorts are, you tend to stick to the friends you’ve got, and if a new one happens along, it’s completely unexpected and sometimes even a little unsettling. One certainly doesn’t try as hard to make friends.

What does this have to do with anything? Nothing. Just the occasional worry that A WHOLE BUNCH of bands will snap at once.

Know what I mean?

So, I’m eating a ham and cheese sandwich about two days ago, and all of a sudden there’s this crunch. I figure, hey, maybe I bit into a sharp piece of the ham or something (hams, of course, being notorious for their sharp edges). But I’ll be damned if something wasn’t wrong with my back wisdom tooth on top (I never had them removed). Part of it was wiggling, and then eventually part of it fell off, and I had to chase it with my finger so I didn’t swallow it. Currently the tooth in question has a large V-shaped indentation in it.

Now, I would be distressed, but I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have no dental insurance. People I have talked to insist that a wisdom tooth rotting out on you is not that unusual at all, and still others have assured me they’ve totally let teeth go and never had any pain or trouble with them. But the big thing is no dental insurance. Had I dental insurance, I would go get this “extracted” (wonderful, they hack at you with a saw for forty minutes or so). The other kicker is pain. I’m not going to say I’m NOT HAPPY I’m not in pain, but the problem is, when it’s going to be like $300 or so to get this sucker out, well, when you’re not in any pain, you don’t feel an urgent need to go to the sadistic bastard who calls himself a dentist and have him take care of it.

Also, I wouldn’t mind being sedated during the procedure, which would cost extra, but would get me away from seeing the bone-saw approach my mouth.

So, for the time being, I shall wander the Earth, the Mark of Cain, a damn v-shaped tooth, upon me, until I make a little bit more money or I get dental insurance.

Ah, Valentine’s Day. Now, to break from the norm of navel-contemplating, self-pitying single bloggers out there, I’m going to say: I like Valentine’s Day. Even being single. I have fond memories of rushing around Manhattan trying to find a suitable gift for my girlfriend at the time (ohhh yes, I found a suitable gift, and I was suitably rewarded), with the Empire State Building lit up in pinkish-red the whole time. And one particular Valentine’s Day in which another girlfriend gave me a physical gift which would be rude (although fun and very interesting) to describe here. So, I say, what the hell, who cares if I’m single. I like seeing the couples moon over each other for a day. To sum up: get the hell out there, get your girlfriend some flowers or jewelry, go out to eat, have a blast. As for me…well, my Playstation qualifies as a significant other at this point, so I’ll be sticking with that.

I just don’t know what kind of flowers it likes.

Ah hah! I have succesfully pushed and succeeded in reuniting a couple of old friends, D.F and D.R from California. I’ve also gone on to do a lot of catching up with both of them, especially D.R., who is quite an interesting character and who I never got a chance to get to know well enough on the first go-round.

It all feels karmically acceptable.

In other news, I have been staring at the template for a tri-fold brochure for a little under a week now and nothing is coming to me. I hate that. The only thing to do is to continue to stare harder and harder at the tri-fold brochure template and…well, hell, maybe if I put on my tinfoil hat, aliens will zap ideas into my brain.

I am mired in the middle of The Confusion, the second volume of The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, and I must say, I liked the first one, Quicksilver, a good deal more. There’s even more minutiae in this one, especially about trading and movement of money, and it can get quite confusing. That being said, I still really like it.

Ahhhh! I just found this one out yesterday. First, let me preface this by saying that the active ingredient in Benadryl is the same as the active ingredient in Nytol is the same as in Sominex and so on right down the line, which is Diphenhydramine Hydrochloride. That’s the stuff that puts you to sleep (and stops you sniffling, too). Anyway, where a box of Nytol might cost you like $12 for 20 tablets or something — all you have to do is go up to a pharmacist and ask for generic Benadryl or Diphendryamine Hydrochloride (same thing) and you’ll get around 100 pills (same strength as Nytol) for $6. Yes. Amazing, eh? Just found out this one myself.

Anybody who’s ever heard “The Aristocrats” joke, or seen the movie co-produced by Penn and Teller (man, do they rule, how much do I miss the hardcore old MofoExMachina BBS?), or likes South Park…I just ran across this. I was sort of looking for it, but not really, just paging through a lot of versions of “The Aristocrats”. Er. Yeah, I’m a sick bastard. Now, anyway, the point is, I found the link to Cartman’s version of the joke. It’s linked from http://www.wikipedia.org. Right-o, so the link to Cartman’s version, which is frigging hilarious, is right here — Cartman’s “The Aristocrats”. If you have Windows Media Player, it ought to work.

Enjoy. And, by the way, I actually heard this joke before the movie came out. And not from the Hugh Heffner roast. I feel special.

Okay, no I don’t. But go check it out anyway.

Okay, the crazy Costa Ricans who used to host my site gratis (who are really nice people, by the way, because I’m about to insult them) are no longer hosting it — rather, it’s being hosted by a good, sound, thoroughly capitalist young man, so I’m allowed to rant a little. Requirements for being hosted by the Costa Rican liberals was “none of that Nazi shit”, i.e., I was not allowed to say that I am a Republican, express support for Republicans, or espouse any of my political views. By the way, the way people keep calling other people “Nazis” when they disagree with them — from both sides of the aisle — is a rant unto itself.

Right. So what the hell was my point? Iraq. Right. And troop withdrawal. Here’s the first point — most reports from the front, and you can check me on this one, report that the troops really feel they’re making progress towards stability and want to stay there. I personally know a young man who’s re-enlisted twice (head of a sniper squad that was around Basrah during the war). In addition, here’s what really gets me — the detractors of Iraq-rebuilding, those who want to jerk the troops home because we’re “failing”, never bother to look at history. Japan? We spent DECADES rebuilding Japan, and I think we did a rather nice job. Germany? Christ, we STILL have troops in Germany! The German liberals hate it, but we still have them there.

The point is — now, I made this point in an article published right after 9/11 in which I asked “how many of you will be with us when we’re mired down in Iraq?”, which is on another computer, and I believe mirror-cached somewhere in the Internet (it was one of my old Feral Cortexes — man, I KNEW we were going into Iraq when I voted for Bush, for the love of God, way before 9/11). Okay, too many dashes, I’ve confused myself. The point is that the American public has the attention span of a gnat these days. We just can’t commit for the long haul. If we truly committed for the long haul in Iraq, we could have a bastion of stable Democracy and free trade in the Middle East. Yes, yes, call me a raving neo-con, call me wrong, but that’s the Big Vision, and it could happen if we’d only shut up and pitch in together on the whole thing, support the troops, support the Big Vision, and just let it happen. It’s already going very well — as a lot of you know, there are a lot of blogs out there that actually report the good news from Iraq. One that is now defunct because of a career change I believe was called exactly that, “The Good News From Iraq”. There is a LOT of progress and good news, but you don’t read about it in the newspapers, because, with their selective publishing, they want you to focus on the damn car-bombs. Especially liberal rags like the NYT and such.

Okay, I’ll shut up. But consider this an open plea for patience. Americans are good at rebuilding national infrastructure. Japan is the big example. For God’s sake, give it a shot. If Martin Luther King had insisted on racial integration the day after tomorrow, it would have been absurd, would it not? But no, he took a long view of things. I’m saying just that. I might not even live to see a truly thriving and free Iraq, but I think it’s something that’s worth working towards.

Ah. It feels good to be political again. Those of you who wish to call me a Nazi or a rabid neo-con or whatever the hell epithet is the phrase of the day, go right ahead. I don’t mind. 🙂

Ah yes, the title says it all. The Patriots lose in a game of horrendous calls and stupid mental errors when they — given the outcome of the other playoff games — could, conceivably, have won it all again. That really pisses me off.

I’ve come to the end of the first volume of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver — I was quite pleased with the entire thing, even though it did have the uncanny ability to confuse me very quickly — and now I’m trying to decide whether I should pick up one of the other new books I have gotten that are non-Stephenson, or to jump right into The Confusion, which is Volume II of the Baroque Cycle.

For those interested in Stephenson, as an aside, he keeps a small website that he maintains himself at http://www.well.com/user/neal/. Pretty interesting. There are some other “official” websites, but that one really is the most intimate, I think.

The one thing I am happy about is all this rain. I mean, the fact that it’s rain. And not snow. Because it could be snow and then I would have to shovel it and that would SUCK.

Alright. I leave you now. I poop on you now. I go to play Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 now.