Category: Stupidy (of Others)

Tales from the Train

Riding the rails

This story isn’t mine. I don’t even know if it’s true. I simply overheard it on the train the other day, and it’s so good that I had to share it.

So there’s thig guy who’s a grafitti bomber, or whatever they call themselves nowadays (damn young people). He and some of his fellow bombers have snuck into the railyards in Welshpool and have been spraying up some carriages on a freight train. One of their mates arrives late and brings McDonalds with him, so they all settle down on top of a carriage to eat.

The train starts.

The guy telling the story bails. He lands face first in the gravel by the side of the track and pulls himself to his feet, yelling for his mates to jump off. Half of them are too scared to leap, and the others are having too much fun. He runs alongside the train until it outpaces him, and his mates ride off into the distance. With nothing else to do  he heads home.

Six hours later he gets a phone call. It’s from his mates. The train didn’t stop or even slow down until it reached the goldfields and they’re now stuck in Kalgoorlie with no way home and nothing but the clothes on their backs, the keys to their cars (550km behind them) and the handful of change they had in their collective pockets…

There’s any number of reasons why that’s probably not true, but God damn I hope it is 😀

Westfail

Weighted Companion Cubes

So, Westfield are setting up a “virtual shopping mall”, featuring all the stores present in their physical shopping centres.

Or at least the ones willing to pay even more than they’re already gouged for to obtain a “virtual lease”.

So they can be on an e-commerce site. On top of the e-commerce sites they almost certainly already have.

Oh, and they’ll pay a commission back to Westfield on all sales.

Sounds a lot like the “virtual shopping malls” that did so well in the late 90’s. Remember them?

Thought not.

I mean I’m not saying it won’t work.

I’m just saying it probably won’t.

Prove me wrong Westfield dudes!

I’ma to stupid too think for maself!

Google is ruining everything!

I haven’t been posting much, or answering emails or anything lately because work has been hellish. It should calm down after today though. I hope.

On the subject of work we got a call this morning from a woman who’d placed an order on one of our affiliated florist websites. She was extremely upset as she’d placed the order for delivery on Sunday, but the confirmation email came back to her saying that it would be delivered on Monday (as the florist involved doesn’t deliver on Sundays).

After calming her down some we got the full story. She typed “perth florists that deliver on Sunday” (or something similar) into Google. Our site came up number one, so she put her order through – apparently missing the numerous large notices all over the bloody site saying that we don’t deliver on Sundays. The very notices that got the site ranked so high on Google for “deliver on Sundays”!

Apparently reading or even basic intelligence isn’t required for living any more – you just type your concerns into Google and throw money at the first site returned. Sheeze!!

Running

How to annoy the Customs department and Cyberpunk fans

Long weekend! Hooray!

(Yes, I usually take every second Monday off, so I get plenty of long weekends, but this is one I get paid for :))

Been spending much of my spare time messing around with Warhammer 40k models – the sad, nerdy results can be seen in my Flickr Stream. The boards that Fabes and I have been building are starting to actually look good, and my force of Valhallan Imperial Guard now consists mostly of models rather than paper cut outs. Still a long way to go though – for one thing I’ll have to paint them all.

Here’s a thing – if you’re going to post gaming materials to Australia, do not put “Warhammer Parts” on the declaration form unless you want customs to open it up and make sure you’re not sending someone prohibited medieval weaponry 😀

Oh, and here’s another thing – a promotional video FASA made for their Cyberpunk/Fantasy fusion game Shadowrun back in 1990.

Problems…

No one ever moves like that in real life. If you want to be stealthy you move in discrete jumps from shadow to shadow or cover to cover. You don’t skip down street wagging your head back and forth like a caffeinated hamster.

When you’re making a movie your first budgetary consideration should be hiring actors who can actually act. Costumes, pink spotlights, hairspray and fog machines can come later.

If you come around a corner and spot a guard, what do you do?
a) Retreat back around the corner and discuss your options
b) Stand out in the open, right under a spotlight, and yell at each other.
(Hint – if you chose anything other than “a” you’re doing it wrong)

The whole video reeks of preaching to the converted. If you have no idea of what Shadowrun is, you would be left feeling confused (and annoyed). Where are the cybernetics? Where are the meta-humans? Why doesn’t that guy put on a goddamn shirt?

So, magic requires your shoulders to be exposed, and causes temporary paralysis. Good to know.

I know Netrunners (or whatever they’re called in Shadownrun, my pedigree is Cyberpunk 2020 after all) aren’t meant to be the muscle of the team, but those panels didn’t seem to require a muscle bound freak to open them.

Oo! It’s a cheap-ass TARDIS control room! And netrunning decks look just like chunky 1980’s keyboards. Retro cool!

If you don’t want the future to laugh at you, don’t blow your entire budget (and half your runtime) on computer graphics that are going to look ludicrous in five years time. And if you are going to whack in a bunch of computer graphics at least include some kind of narrative so people can tell that they’re part of the story and someone didn’t just tape over the movie with an MTV clip.

So, intrusion programs are designed by the Tall Man? Neat.

OK, that’s about all I’ve got to say. Go and make your own entertainment.

The Crawling Chaos

The throne of Chaos where the thin flutes pipe mindlessly…

My sleep last night was disturbed by a truly odd array of noises floating in through my bedroom window. To wit…

  • Strange electric guitar warblings, sounding as if Jimmy Hendrix had taken some really bad acid.
  • Tuneless, repetitive piping on a recorder.
  • The sound of something large and metallic being dragged around the carpark.

It was positively Lovecraftian. I expected Nyarlathotep to manifest at any second.

Accosted by Nazis

Not the best way to start the day…

I don’t know if other people attract random weirdos, or if it’s just me (perhaps it’s that old ‘birds of a feather’ thing). In any case this morning on my walk to the railway station I was approached by a tall, thin individual who lit up a cigarette and proceeded to walk along side me asking questions…

“Hot isn’t it?”
“Sure is”
“Off to work?”
“Yup”

I followed my usual procedure for these circumstances, which is to keep doing whatever I’m doing and provide as little response as possible, in the hopes that the annoying freak would get the hint and leave. No such luck, as he kept at it…

“What d’ya do?”
“Computer Programming”

No point providing him with more detail than that. If he found out I was a web designer he might want a site built…

“D’ya make websites?”

So much for that strategy…

“Yup”
“How much does a good website cost these days”
“’bout $4000”
“But they can take it down right?”

Now that was an odd question. I mean it really depends on who “they” are, and a whole bunch of technical factors revolving around hosting, domain names and local jurisdictions. I decided the simplest course was just to agree with him…

“Sure can”
“Unless it’s hosted in America, yeah?”

OK… A bit abstract, but whatever…

“Yeah”
“We spent $2000 on a website and three days later they took it down”

Let me guess, because you didn’t pay them?

“Shit”
“Yeah, I’m with Van Tongeren‘s boys and we made a website for the ANM but they took it down”

WHAT THE FRACK!?

For those puzzled by my reaction Jack van Tongeren was WA’s best known white supremacist and founder of the Australian Nationalist Movement – a group specializing in the firebombing of Asian restaurants and sticking up posters saying “Asians (or whatever other ethnic group they felt threatened by that particular week) Out or Racial War!”. And here was one of these toe-rags walking along beside me making small talk! Reasoning that anyone unhinged enough to join the ANM would not take my views on their insane hate group well I remained non-committal…

“Oh yeah”
“So we had to move it to America, now it’s on Stormfront“

FUCKING STORMFRONT?? HOLY FETH!! Stay non-committal! Stay non-committal!

“Oh yeah”

At this point there was a pause, as if the maniac beside me was waiting to see if I’d break out into a verse of the Horst Wessel Lied. After a minute or so of silence he started back up again, on a subject almost as bad…

“I had the best sex of my life last night!”

Geez, I really want to hear about that! Pray continue sir!

“Oh yeah”
“Two women, it was completely unexpected too!”
“Right”

Thankfully at this point he appeared to spot something distressing up ahead, quickly mumbled “See ya mate” and decamped into the park by the library. I continued towards the train station breathing a sigh of relief, but about ten metres on was confronted by a rather shabby looking and apparently quite angry woman…

“Who was that bloke you were talking to?!”

Good question. The mystery racist nympho of olde Bayswater?

“I dunno, some bloke who just walked up to me”

She muttered something under her breath and headed into the park, presumably chasing after him.

Not the best way to start the day really.

Hellish

Satan Built My Website

Deville’s Pad may be a fantastically cool venue, but their website is hellish.

Graphics optimised for a white background on black, horribly compressed maps and menus (to the point of near illegibility) and completely built in Flash so you can’t select/copy any of the text or open anything in a new tab.

It’s horrible. I don’t know what they paid for it but whatever it was they got badly ripped off.

(By the way, the design is great – it’s the implementation that’s jaw-droppingly bad).

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