Update June 25 2012

Blogging about comedy is hard. As any writer will tell you, there’s certain hurdles to face, namely deadlines.

So here’s the thing, I’m not by any means a professional writer. I’m an IT administrator by day. Which means I’m an IT admin by night when work needs to get done, somehow I try to be a father and husband when I get some spare time. This means maintaining a blog is extra difficult, but I want to make that commitment. That strive to write more, even if nobody’s listening. Because one day I’ll look and think;

‘Man I wrote a lot of bullshit.’

I’m writing this because I want to keep this blog alive, and I want to experiment with the format. I really wanted to keep this a comedy blog, but given my career path it was inevitable that some IT things were going to creep into it.

Which means more blog posts will arrive with some new technology, or just complaints about why things are the way they are. I certainly can’t offer to fix them, I’m not an engineer but I can offer some insight as to why things end up being the way they are.

Sounds philosophical when I put it down, but it’s the truth.  Enjoy the updates.

 

-Dexter

Gratefulness

Be Grateful for a few moments. Seriously. Most of my day is filled with people screaming at me because they’ve lost some important document, or they’re stressing out because they can’t do something. On most accounts, the issue is frivolous and unimportant.

Not being all worldly, or trying to sound smart, I want to ask you guys: what’s really important in your life? Your family, your friends, your hobbies, your job? You ever catch yourself wondering how things could be so much better if you did something, or won the lottery or something? Did you ever think about the other spectrum and wonder how much worse things could possibly be?

Just something to think about before going into the weekend. Be grateful for all that you have. Because there’s plenty of those who have much less.

Yes, smiles are always free.

The Big Three – Oh!

Hitting thirty reminds me that I’m officially old. It’s one of the scariest numbers to hit, a major landmark in the scheme of only knowing twenty nine years of angst, revolt and perhaps a healthy regard for misbehaviour. My entire life up until twenty-five, was about waiting until I was old enough. Now, I wish I could go back. Back to a time of care free weekdays, getting scolded for trying to eat another cookie. They’re all distant memories now. Thirty was the age of people you could no longer trust, those old farts were part of the system that was ‘keeping you down’. Now I am the system; I’m the grumpy old bastard silently cursing teenagers with blue hair and no respect for their eardrums. Hey, that’s part of growing up, right? Realizing you’re doing things you despised your parents for saying or doing. At least I’ll always be younger than my folks.

There have been so many milestones in my life, becoming a father, a husband, being laid off, enduring a strike, building a house, and a becoming a student of cancer are some of the most memorable. And those all happened in the last five years. My memory becomes a little hazy trying to go backward to a time of living with parents, of getting my first job, of thinking I knew what love was. Those were milestones that seem not as significant these days. But being a father puts all that into perspective. Now all my kid’s major milestones will be important to me, she’s going to forget them, but I’ll hold onto them.

Life is funny that way.

I’ve had the good fortune of understanding that life can be trying at times. Sounds odd that I’m saying that. But it’s really those tough times that define a person. Who you are going into rough times is certainly not the same person who emerges out the other side. The learning experience firsthand is incredible. And I can look back and say ‘I did that, I survived it’. Not everyone will be given the same opportunities. I certainly hope many don’t. But I’m glad I did.

So I’m happily not freaking out over the whole ordeal. There’s lots I haven’t accomplished yet, but I’ll get around to it.

Maybe when I hit forty I’ll really freak out.

-Dexter

 

Is there a tiny stripper that pops out the top?

2010 Movie Previews

This year of cinema is going to be great. You know why? Because in the age of information media, over stimulation and sheer stupidity, we want to go to the moves and get our optical nerves assaulted in complete darkness for 2 hours. Here’s some of those movies coming up this year that will do exactly that.

 

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Cop Out
Release Date: February 26, 2010
Jesus Christ, when did Bruce Willis stop caring, and start movies that absolutely stink? The trailer has manic depressive Tracy Morgan as Bruce’s partner with a fucking gun. That whole sentence is just wrong. Bruce Willis isn’t an action star anymore, now he’s just babysitting.

 

 

A buddy cop movie with a black guy and a white guy? Genius!

 

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The Karate Kid
Release Date: June 11, 2010
Watch the trailer, then re-read the title of the movie. For anyone that’s actually paying attention, the kid has moved to China. The national Martial Art of China is Kung-Fu. Jackie Chan is teaching the kid Kung-Fu. There is no karate happening in this film except for the similarity in high kicks. This film vehicle only means to show of Will Smith’s kid as the next acting super-kid. Too bad no one involved in this project bothered to understand basic geography.

 

 

Seriously? The Great Wall? They’re not even trying to cover up the landmarks.

 

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Alice in Wonderland
Release Date: March 5, 2010
The most Burton-esque film to date, Tim has appeared to honour the original material and portray everything through the eyes of a meth-head. Bravo Tim, another nightmare inducing film to further my fears of the dark, and clowns.

 

 

I shall never sleep again at the sight of Madonna’s mouth on Johnny Depp’s face.

 

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Iron Man 2
Release Date: May 7, 2010
Thank God they got rid of that whiny bitch Terrance Howard, Don Cheadle is the shit. The best part of the trailer was the last 3 seconds of Iron Man and War Machine going ballistic.

 

 

This is all the awesome I need.

 

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Sex and the City 2
Release Date: May 28, 2010
Just what every man needed: another estrogen fuelled romp that shows men as dastardly scoundrels who do terrible things to women. And thus shows that women are justified doing what they do because men are pigs. Burn your bra’s and hug your trees, bitches.

 

 

Vomit inducement commence…

 

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Inception
Release Date: July 16, 2010
I have no idea what’s going on in this movie, but Christopher Nolan is at the helm. If you’ve ever watched Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, any of his films that deal with mind-fucking, then you’re in for a treat. Plus, DiCaprio is one of the finest actors of our generation so mark this date on your calendars, it’s going to be one bumpy ride folks.

 

 

Goosebumps away!

 

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The Expendables
Release Date: August 13, 2010
Stallone wants to revamp the action genre all over again. Too bad he missed the 1980’s catchphrase bus. Action is heading downhill, as Gerard Butler can attest to as of late, all the action movies are mindless and the movie going public wants a little more meat to it’s bones than the ‘run from explosion’ formula that’s been diluted with the likes of Michael Bay.

 

 

A couple decades too late, Sly.

 

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The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Release Date: June 30, 2010
Teen angst, the sequel with equally shitty acting and story lines. Most men emancipated enough will enjoy the love story between a human and a vampire. Most other, regular men will find something else to do than take their girlfriends to this suck-fest.

 

 

Stephanie Meyers was rejected by the high school football captain, and is now making millions on it.

 

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
Release Date: November 19, 2010
The second to last movie in the series, Daniel Radcliffe can finally retire after the last film is finished at the ripe age of 45. Seriously, the film execs are taking so long between films that he’s aging at least 3 years between each. Trying to cramp 20 years worth of wrinkles into a 17 year old package does not work.

 

 

At least Emma Watson is getting smoking hot with each film.

Life and Times of a Medium sized man

Being of average height and weight, does have it’s disadvantages. I was out and about looking for a nice work shirt the other day and to my dismay was having a hell of a time finding the perfect medium/medoyen shirt in the print that I preferred. Every damn thing was either a small, XS, XXL or XXXL. When it comes to availability, I like to think that being ‘average’ would mean there’s more of my size being made and in-stock.

Being average means that numbers are against me. Average means I’ve in the middle. Average also means most people are in this grouping.

Now, if was incredibly obese, or hilariously small this mean I could purchase those nice patterns I like so much. That not being the case, I’ll just have to settle in knowing that should I ever step into a big and tall store, I’ll most likely be thrown out for trying on jacket that could fit a Rhino.

 

“Richard, what’s happening?!

No Regrets

Life can be full of regrets, but you can’t let the past dictate you. I have this one vivid memory, where I call someone a ‘stupid moron’. It was at work, and it wasn’t my proudest moment. I said it out of anger and the person on the other end took it kinda personally. I don’t know whatever happened to her. All I know is I said something in the heat of the moment, and I didn’t mean it. The flashback will happen to me when I’m not doing anything remotely interesting. And at that moment I remember, I feel terrible. Horrible as a matter of fact. Horrible that I could have been such a dick about such a stupid thing. I also remember high school being a place I really disliked, that the people, the culture of my home town was so privileged to have the local tar sands driving the entire town, and the was the golden egg of Alberta. The attitude that gets bred up there is one of backwards arrogance. I hated it, and all the popular kids used to pick on me for being different. I truly hated some of those kids back home, and I regretted not doing something to one of the truly meaner kids. Can I live the rest of my life thinking of those moments where I could have done something back, can I live with the regret of not starting a fight with someone that deserved it? Regret can eat away at someone.

I certainly know that I won’t cuss someone for forgetting something, or lose my patience with a co-worker because they don’t understand. Because that was me at one point. I know that calling them inappropriate names is childish and foolish (and these days can cause a law suit). So I see that as a learning opportunity. I don’t have to start any fist fights with anyone from my graduating class. When I moved south, it was to obtain my bachelor’s degree and be part of a city with great intelligence, class and wit. From that standpoint, I wanted to be a more rounded person, and I’ve accomplished that. Who knows about the kids from back home, I might be the snotty one, but at least I can be aware of it.

Regret is only possible through past events. And rather than look at what I’ve done wrong in the past, I’m choosing to learn from them. Perhaps one day I’ll be one of those intelligent, classy, witty folks in the city.


– Dexter


This picture has nothing to do with the article, it is however awesome.

Tiger Woods and the never ending media blitz

I keep hearing about Tiger this, and Tiger that, how many people he’s slept with, how many times he’s cheated on his super hot wife. Well, I’m sick of it. This being the age of information isn’t necessarily the age of intelligence or relevance. Sometimes I stop to ponder how many of us are able to separate the difference between what is important, and what is complete and utter wastes of time. Tiger Woods supposedly slept with over 14 women. I get that. But look at the bigger picture, did he cheat at golf? Absolutely not. So why is this such big news? Because we’re so damn fascinated with celebrities- too fascinated as a matter of fact. This is the age where morons like Heidi and Spencer Pratt are famous for being rich and white. Are we that gullible to think that the rich are so much better than us? That we place the wealthy on a pedestal, and because of the size of their bank accounts we hold them in such high moral regards? People are after all, human. And the human condition dictates that we make mistakes. Tiger made a few mistakes, and now the media is all over him with steroid allegations and talks about his wife leaving him and taking the kids.

Just take a step back, folks. Just think, does it really matter why Woods was unfaithful? Jokes will be churned out, but is this really essay quality material that we should all be blogging about?

That last sentence sealed the ironic tomb on this article.

Whores!

Geek and Nerd: Defined

With life and technology moving at a breakneck speed, you should be informed of the particular words too often misused.

While most of us (that being YOU) tag people with certain terms, you should be aware of their meanings before you start pinning someone with a label. For anyone that knows, there is a difference between a nerd and a geek.

Directly from dictionary.com is the definition of NERD.


nerd
-noun Slang.
1. a stupid, irritating, ineffectual, or unattractive person.
2. an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit: a computer nerd.
Also, nurd.
Origin:
1960-65, Americanism; obscurely derived expressive formation

By this rationale, all engineers are nerds. Because a lot of them are real pompous know-it-alls that require a good punch in the face. This is good and bad. Lots of bad points to list, but it’s good because of this: If a nerd is well versed in one subject and that subject happens to be computers. You get the idea. A nerd can be someone who’s a programming whiz, a web admin king, general web persona, who is a great at all that technical stuff but gets nervous talking to a real, live girl.

So with that definition in mind, a nerd is:

  • a really annoying know it all
  • incapable of human affection
  • ‘Gary Busey’ ugly
  • someone focused on only one subject and considers themselves a master of the subject

And the definition of GEEK, from dictionary.com.


geek
-noun Slang.
1. a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp. one who is perceived to be overly intellectual.
2. a computer expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often considered offensive when used by outsiders.)
3. a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken.
Origin:
1915- 20; prob. var. of geck (mainly Scots) fool < D or LG gek

The Geek however, is considered a more balanced person; the geek is still considered dislikable, but because of the size of his/her brainpan. Now, the difference: a geek is the computer expert, it’s not an obsession. Also, most geeks have the ability to talk to the opposite sex without sweating like Robin Williams eating a bucket of fried chicken. Plus, there’s added ability to work with carnie folk, and pull off Alice Cooper like stunts. seriously, I didn’t know that point #3 even applied to being a geek

A geek, by the above definition is:

  • someone a little disliked, only because they’re really smart
  • someone overly intellectual, yet not irritating or annoying
  • an expert at computers, or someone who enjoys the computer and understands it
  • some sort of entertainer that will do weird, fucked up shit. And really, who hasn’t?

Looking at that list you probably want to define yourself as a geek. But look closer, and peel back some of those layers of being a nerd.

A nerd might be antisocial, but the nerd’s products are what all the geeks are supporting. Seriously: A nerd can code and create crazy algorithms, a geek cannot crack it, but needs a program created by nerd to do so. Starting to get it?

Like I said earlier, the nerds are the engineers. They’re the ones creating bucky paper and figuring out new ways to do things, especially in the web world.

Not to say a geek can’t change the world, they can write a piece of code that can efficiently run something faster. But it was the nerd that wrote the entire computer language in the first place.

So, as a nerd, you can sacrifice your personal time and live in a shed, quietly coding, or as a geek, be out in the world meeting and having sex. However: the nerd can become incredibly rich off patents and then have lots of sex.

Which one would you rather be?

Can’t a guy have the best of both worlds?

If you’re on the fence here’s an old article that describes why it’s worth dating a nerd or geek.

5 Crimes That Got Easier Thanks To The Internet

1. Nigerian Scams
How many times before my spam blocker took over did I get some poorly worded entirely capitalized email stating someone in Nigeria was sitting on a truckload of money and needed someone to funnel it out of the country. This brings up a few items: the first being how many rich people are there in Nigeria, and who is dumb enough to fall for these? Apparently lots. According to Wikipedia, these scams cost the UK economy £150 million per year. Nigerian scams, or sometimes known as 419 scams started off as a bunch of unemployed university students sending mail out to large companies, mainly Nigerian oil sector companies in the early 80’s. Of course, you had to spend a little money to make money and the cost was all in purchasing the stamps. Thanks to online email, they can now put forth their brand of poorly written grammatically incorrect emails to suckers all over the world. And why stop at saying they need you to bail out their cash? Check your latest listing on Craigslist and if you have some dude willing to go over the amount for your used 1986 Tercel, chances are, he’s trying to scam you.

Not for anyone that uses F7

2. Online Auctions
In today’s day and age you can bid on something without even seeing it. That 1969 Camaro with the racing stripes and acid blue paint job look a little too good to be true? That’s because it is. If you’re wondering why someone keeps outbidding you it’s probably because there’s a room full of dorks with their laptops all bidding and driving up the price so some poor schmuck like you will end up forking over some ridiculous amount to the guy orchestrating the auction. By the time you’ve wired the money, the address is a fake, the guys are gone with your money and that hot chick bidding on that item is really a hairy dude with a ZZ-topish beard.

slightly used, otherwise in great shape

3. Online Banking
I’m not talking about a Swordfish style attack on your bank account, or a group of elite hackers all trying to steal the US Federal Reserve and then distribute it Robin Hood style to all the other, l33t hackers. I’m talking about being dumb enough and leaving your online bank account open, or writing down your bank password on a bar napkin, or unsecured email to someone. Talk about easy pickings; even the most listless person could transfer all the available funds from your credit card onto another online account for a measly fee. Let’s get one thing straight: Hollywood puts that irrational fear that someone is going after the big corporation’s cash which is in turn, your cash. It’s Hollywood propaganda. Do you think any bank worthy of holding Billions of dollars in revenue is going to have a security leak the size of a truck? Truth is, those elite nerds who were at one point trying to hack the bank probably got hired for the Cyber-hacking division and are making fuckloads more and you and me. That’s right. These safe guards in place because for every wannabe script kiddie out there, there’s an equally and almost infinitely smart group of people on the other side protecting the interests of you, me and Bill Gates Super fortune.

Must…bid…on…beanie babies…

4. Identity Theft
This is becoming a real problem mainly because people are either too trusting or too stupid to see the warning signs. Signed up for a new online checking account, that’s “just as good as a credit card”. The only people that should have your bank account number is the bank, and your bookie. You put your bank account number on some forum and you might as well paint a big red bull’s-eye on your back. But that’s the obvious way of getting at your wallet, the more subversive way is through a virus, which tells me you don’t have a good, trusted virus protection or firewall software. Thanks to those smart elite geeks who know how to make a good key logger Trojan virus, you just have to sit there, not update your virus definitions and watch your wages disappear into the sunset. Oh yeah, and if you’re dumb enough to post your birth date, education, social insurance number and address, you’re just asking for it.

It’s true, my shadow DOES have a mind of his own

5. Social networking crimes
Thanks to facebook and myspace just about anyone anywhere can do many of the above things by posing as an innocent little girl or fresh faced teen girl with large breasts. Hop onto any one websites with a Paris Hilton-esque profile pic and watch all the pedophiles come out the woodwork requesting your friend status. Be dumb enough to look for this sort of personality or have an open profile with certain things as: your birth date, where you work, how much you make, where you live and your phone number and you might as well kiss your car, career, house, mortgage and future credit goodbye. It still amazes me that people are actually listing where they live and even help out by posting the Google map link to help potential stalkers, rapists and girl scouts to come to your house and sell you shit, steal your shit or just plain shit on your lawn. Oh yeah, and if you thought your information is protected, think again. Did you ever list some shitty butt-rock music group as one of your interests, only the next day find a banner ad advertising said shitty butt-rock group conveniently placed right under the your login? The same goes for those ‘find a hot girl to fuck in your area’ ads, since they know your ISP, your location and possibly your address already. Just give in already, people know you surf porn, you might as well just come clean about it.

About the most fitting picture for the article

When I Was Your Age…

We didn’t have no cartoon network, you’d have to wait all week until Saturday and all the good cartoons were on in the early morning. If you slept in, you were treated to crappy ‘after school special type’ shows that had lessons to learn at the end of each episode. Plus, get this: we only had 13 channels and you had to pick up the weekly TV guide in order to find out what was on.

How were the graphics?”

1.44 Floppies held all your school data. FOR THE YEAR. That’s right, all your porn had to sit in the same directories as ‘Treasure Island book report.doc’ and forget about encryption, that wasn’t even widely available until the mid 90’s. Put that into perspective, considering there used to be completely disk dependant Operating Systems: that’s right, you needed it to boot to floppy first, then keep inserting disks for each little application you wanted to run. Just hope and pray your little brother didn’t stick it to the fridge with a magnet.

Diabolical even at 3.5′

Before Napster came along, you had to record all your music either from the radio, or head over the mall and steal the CD. Or if you had an older sibling with at least some good taste in music, you’d steal it from them. And you had to sit in front of the stereo shakily ready to hit pause at any time should the radio announcer come cut in at the last few seconds and ruin your wondrous recording of ‘I would do anything for Love’ by Meatloaf. Yeeeesh, perhaps it’s not worth recording that rubbish anymore.

Where’s the fucking record button?

Before high speed was all the rage and you were stuck surfing the web with dial up, forget using the phone and if you wanted to download a file more than 2MB, you’d be waiting a while. You know how you’re hot on your heels waiting for the latest Bitorrent movie rip to come through, and it takes 20 minutes because there’s only 50 seeds? Think about that 20 minutes, add in the fact you’re waiting for a 15 KB porn image, that’s the frustration we’re talking about here.

Man I hated this screen

8 bit Ninentdo and Sega were kick ass. It doesn’t matter how many times you watched those pixels run across the screen in their chunkly, blockly gloriousness, it just gave you a chance to escape your life and homework for a few hours. Some games were even unfortunate to have save points, you basically had to get as far as you could in one night, pause it, head off to school the next day and unpause when you got home. So if your mom needed the electrical outlet for some vaccuming, your game was toast.

Firehazard be damned, keep that thing running!

There was no such thing as voicemail, call waiting or call display. You complain that you forget your voicemail access number? Well, think about that and the fact that you actually had to come home to retrieve any messages you got while you weren’t there. If you were on vacation and were expecting that important call? Well, don’t bother leaving the front door. Since Call Display you can now officially screen your calls, back in the day you had to take your chances when picking up the phone, let me just say, being a telemarketer in those days was a lot easier.

“Wrong number, try dialing ‘3’ instead.”

Cell phones didn’t have everything they have right now. Let’s put it this way: you have a polymorphic ring, an LCD display with 16 million color gradient, online browser, video camera and a decent battery life on just about any phone being offered right now. Growing up, you’d be lucky your ‘cell phone’ wasn’t the size and weight of a brick, had shitty reception, no LCD and cost a fortune. Oh yeah, and forget about using it as a music player, you’d be lucky if the thing had enough power for an hour talk time.

“Better MCI long distance rates!? Tell me more!”

Nothing on demand. Video on Demand, News on Demand, Music on Demand. Jeez, the only thing we had on demand was fast food; it was shitty back then, and it’s still shitty now. Thanks to digital media exploding with popularity and ease of use you can get whatever you want RIGHT NOW. If there was a first run movie you wanted to rent on VHS (I’ll talk about that later) you had to wait the 8 months it took to put the movie on those glorious tapes. Plus, you were pretty much at the mercy of whichever newspaper or magazine you subscribed to. If a related topic was worth your time investigating, you’d only get a snippet of it and then wait for the ‘breaking’ news a month later.

“Damn, all I want is a naked captain Janeway”

Tape Media ruled the market. Well, someone give it up for Betamax, the little format that Sony Copyrighted, only put together about 10 different models of players then let the market eat itself. VHS was no better, it was larger, didn’t hold much more volume and was prone to breaking. Plus, if you had a sub par VHS player, it’d eat your favorite tapes and spit them back out as a string of magnetic ribbon. Compare a VHS tape that could hold about 6 hours worth of video against a modern DVD that holds about 12 hours worth with bonus features and some with PC support. Well, you get the idea.

Sony’s first big middle finger to the video market

Ergomomic nothing. Chairs were made of shitty plastic, car seats were benches with bad springs and office chairs pretty much didn’t have arm rests unless you were the president of the company. Bucket seats were available to later models, so everyone had to cozy up on the same bench seat; I’m sure at one point we had to share seat belts when heading to A&W for drive up service. Oh yeah; no cup holders either. You spilt, you were cleaning it up.

Not pictured, the crippling chronic lower back pain