Man Steals Ambulance; Leads Police on a Chase

Much like the Mormons necrodunking Pope John Paul II, stories like this just confirm my generally low opinion of humanity in general. It seems a man stole an ambulance and led the police on a chase.

Exactly what was this man thinking? First of all, let's examine what he's stealing. An ambulance would have to be very conspicous and while I'm sure it's resalve value might be very high, I'm pretty sure most purchasers of such equipment go through legal channels.

Nor has he chosen the fastest getaway method. Sure, ambulances may not go slow, but it's not like they're going to win any stock car races. And finally, does he really think stealing an ambulance is going to make him less conspicous? It might get people out of his way if he turns the lights on.

Sometimes you just wonder what people were thinking.

It seems I am fresh out of inane ramblings

Although posting that I'm out of ideas really does qualify for this little blog here, doesn't it? It occurs to me I should greatly up the quality of writing on this blog. I now I am capable of more, I just don't care to, because I don't think anyone else cares either.

I realize I might be wrong, but since I'm the administrator, I can delete any posts who disagree with me. (Okay folks, I really don't do that. I will only delete comments that come from posting robots or links to adult sites, even though those links netted me a lot of traffic.

The Lost Post

I had an entry that I thought was rather funny yesterday, although I now forget what it was about. Rather than typing it in directly from Blogger's editor, I decided to e-mail it from my Google account. (I could have just as easily done this from Yahoo, but Yahoo adds a tagline that I don't care to see in Blog articles.)

I suppose the only thing that is possible to learn from this is to type the address for your blogs in correctly if you're going to post by E-mail. Truthfully, I thought I did, but as you can see, it didn't turn out like I planned. As Robert Burns said, "The Best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee."

Man Sentenced to Year in Prison for Licking Feet

This happened in New York. A judge sentenced a man to a year in prison because he licked women's feet on the subway. He said it was a way to break the ice and meet people

I'd be lying if I said people's behavior didn't amaze me sometimes and I can't imagine this worked all that well for him. I'm sure it started some conversations but it can't be the kind of conversation you'd want to have. I wouldn't be surprised if he got backhanded more than once for it either.

Archives

It occurred to me today that this site does indeed have archives. Of course this is standard fare for any site on Blogger, but the more important question is why would anyone want to read them?

There is nothing important that goes on on this Blog, sure some of the actual news stories are funny, but I haven't posted any of those in a while.

Machiavellian Management Styles

Why do people think Machiavelli is a philosopher whose philosphy is worthy of emulating and while are almost all of these idiots in management?

Mesothelioma Websites

I'm sure if you do random searches across blogs, you'll come across a ton of these sites, and almost all of them are running Google Adsense. I sympathize for the people who have the disease, but I'm getting a little sick of people putting up these sites simply because it has the highest paying click price of any other Google Ads.

Not that I have a problem with people using Google or the Internet to make money, but why make an industry out of people's suffering unless you're in the medical or legal professions? Perhaps I should set one up for myself, after all, I advertise and I use ads. (On the other hand, I use Crispads and Adbrite and highly recommend the first.)

A Major life milestone --- yay for me!

As of yesterday, I beat Phantasy Star II, which means I've beat all the games Sega put out as console versions of Phantasy Star. The ending was a little disappointing but at least Mother Brain didn't seem to be as corny as I'd feared.

Are These the Post-It Notes that stick?

Believe it or not, I once got fired for my answer to that question. It was four years ago now and an older gentleman posed it to me. I said "yes" rather sarcastically because I couldn't believe anyone would have been so stupid as to ask that question.

What I should have said was "Yes, you moron. That's the whole point. There's no such thing as a Post-It note that doesn't stick. Please go be stupid elsewhere." If I was going to go out, I might as well have gone out with a bang.

I hope you don't mind if I'm a little less serious today. You see, I do a lot of writing. Most of it isn't very good. Of course, I save my good stuff for my other blogs, which you'll just have to find out what they are if you want to read them.

Yet, I probably would not be able to get away with posting such random crap to the Internet and indeed making a little -- very little -- money off of it were it not for the trends that allowed blogging to start in the first place.

So today, I'm just going to sit back and raise a glass to the people who invented blogging, which is little more than code for a formatted website to help the lazy who don't want to learn or do HTML.

The Dungeons of Phantasy Star II

So I've finished playing through the first Phantasy Star. Yay me. I guess I deserve a cookie or something. So naturally, since I have the Gameboy Advenced Phantasy Star collection, I start playing the second afterwards.

Now the second is a very good game, although some of it's plot elements (including the death of one of the main characters) are cliched now, but who in the world designed the dungeons? Did Sega specifically hire an especially sadistic programmer for these? (Note: I believe all programmers are sadists who enjoy inflicting confusing software on people. I know *I* certainly do.)

I've had to go online to find maps and thank goodness they're there. Perhaps there's a reason this game came with a hintbook when it first came out. I've nearly played it through to the end before, but couldn't defeat Dark Force before I had to return the Genesis cartridge I borrowed. I should be able to defeat it this time simply because I own the game. (I also have to wonder why isn't Dark Force the *last* villian? He is in all the other games -- except IV, where the Profound Darkness is the last boss. I still consider him Dark Force though, although you face him 3 times prior to finally confronting the Profound Darkness.)

Well, at least I don't have many more dungeons to go, with only Naval and Noah remaining. (And why is he referred to as Noah in the first game and all the later ones as Lutz?)

Well, I'll be happy if I finally beat this and 'Mother Brain' doesn't seem as corny an idea as it first did when I played this game.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Well, nothing's official but it looks like they might be moving the trucks arrival to 3p.m. While that still means I'll have to unload it, what it will stop meaning is I have to wake up so godawfully early in the morning to be at work. I can't say how excited this makes me.

I realize this isn't important, but you're not reading this website because I have anything important to say, do you? It's my inane ramblings.

Open Source Software

I'd like to take the time today to remind people to support Open Source software. I'm not saying you have to donate money, time, or code to it, but I'm asking you to use it as much as possible. If you can donate or code, the projects could certainly use the help. (Unfortunately, when I program I prefer to do it in Pascal, most Open Source projects, including the Pascal compiler I use, are done in C++.)

Using software, particularly programs like OpenOffice by Sun Microsystems helps break up Microsoft's monopoly and forces more competition on the software giant.

Don't worry about compatibility either, OpenOffice supports the formats used by Microsoft and Corell, so you can transfer documents between them with ease.

The best thing about Open source projects is that they are absolutely free. You can download any number of them on the Intenet. I myself use: OpenOffice, Mozilla, Bloodshed Pascal, and Bloodshed Dev C++.

While I cannot abandon Microsoft entirely (I'm sorry but it would take more effort than I want to put into it to get Linux running), I can certainly decide not to give them support by using their other programs.

Cinco De Mayo

Why exactly do American's celebrate this holiday? Oh wait, it's a convenient excuse to get drunk and throw a party. See also my thread on Groundhog's Day for further details.

Trends in video games I don't like

I've been a fan of RPGs for a long time, but the current trend
is towards the action RPGs. While there is one big advantage over the
action rpg compared to the random encounters that are in more
traditional RPGs, there is a glaring design flaw in them.

I don't play console rpgs to have my coordination tested. In
fact, the one nice thing about the rpg is that you could be fairly
good at them and not have to worry about how well you can press those
buttons. Action rpgs take this element away.

While I have beat some games that require coordination, Sonic
the Hedgehog, Mechassault I & II, Halo, Aerial Assault, Aerial
Combat, and Crimson Skies (I might as well add Jade Empire to the
list), I have a difficult time with them.

And the reasn I probably prefer shooters is because they don't
require complex manuevers typical of the fighting games. Just point
and click. To be fair Crimson Skies does have some controller tricks,
but you can beat the game without them. But even here, a company
called Rockstar games has felt the need to complicate matters. I've
only played one of their titles, Red Dead Revolver, and didn't care
for it. Yes, it was a decent attempt at spaghetti westerns in a video
game, but were the duel scenes or trickshots to beat some opponents
really necessary?

So, console rpg makers let's see more games done in the style of
Knights of the Old Republic where you don't need coordination, there
really aren't random encounters, and with decent gameplay and
storyline. And if you make a shooter, don't feel the need to put
Mortal Kombat style moves in.