Monday, March 22, 2004
Mmmmm... 50% of my daily fat intake...
Yeah, McCain's International pizzas, as cheap and convenient and tasty as they are, are apparantly the devil incarnate when it comes to nutrition. 1/4 of the pizza, according to the back of the box, contains 25% of a person's daily fat intake. This does not seem so good, especially when you consider that the pizza is still small enough for me to need to eat half of it. There's more fat than carbs in this thing though, so I guess it's Atkin's friendly. Don't quote me on that though. Still, compared to the PC Wood Fired pizza (which are small and barren enough to be a meal for one, that one being me, unto themselves), these things are actually quite good. Unlike most oven-pizzas, they actually have toppings, and the crust doesn't taste like petroleum-laced cardboard, which is always a plus. Also, I got to store the remaining half in a plastic bag, instead of my usual, classier Ziplocware. I don't know why that's a good thing, but it is.
Segues, now available without a recall!
Speaking of segues, I don't have any. To quote Greg Froops (sp?) "follow me down the happy trail of topic-changes!" I was watching Rick Mercer tonight, and it turns out he shot most of the show that wasn't in the studio in Edmonton. So now I am homesick after watching all the shots of WEM and the U of A, and he even did his rant on Groat Bridge! As usual, pity may be sent in denominations of 10s and 20s.
Also, I was cruising through HMV, and the discrimination in pricing really seemed to jump out at me today. See, in HMV, and most stores, you have this constant clash between the "flavour-of-the-months", the "always-in-seasons" and the "shelfwarmers". The flavours are the ones with all the stickers on them, and because they're being pimped off to you with great fervor, they are at a great price, and unfortunately are almost always crap. You get the odd deal, but mostly it's just the hot new releases from last month bundled with the crap nobody buys (with good reason). The classics, in contrast, are the good movies that have a strong following in the mainstream. They're mostly good movies, well loved by all, and priced reasonably. The ones I have the beef with though, are the shelfwarmers. These are the diamonds in the rough that nobody ever buys, but it's not because the movies are obscure. See, HMV must think that because these movies are so obscure, nobody will ever buy them, and therefore they must charge more to make up the loss on the few units they do sell to those desperate enough. How else can one justify charging 80 dollars for The City of Lost Children? It's just a simple 2-disc collector's edition, so why is it so much more than the rest? Black Adder was the other one. Yes, it's 860 minutes of the series (the whole thing!), and there is only one copy on the shelf, but 150 dollars seems a little steep to me. Of course, I could just be really cheap.
More segues! They explode when they fall over!
What else was I going to talk about? Oh yes. It's probably just me, but I think it seems really quite egotistical and rather snobbish to try and use all your names. I mean, Micheal Clarke Duncan, F. Murray Abraham, Seann William Scott, you guys are all great actors, but it just sounds really hoity-toity to have three names. If anyone goes up to four, I'ma shoot something.
In the same lines of arrogance, did it not occur to the U of A to perhaps TELL THE STUDENTS WHEN YOU CHANGE ENTIRE COURSE STREAMS??? I get an email today from Kevin the Mighty IBM Guy, who I share courses with, and apparantly the one course that was the target of all my hate last term (and which I did the best in, ironically*) has been removed from the program. This angers Calculon, and I wish the utmost burning to be inflicted on those responsible. Kevin has sent an inquiring email in the direction of the EE Dept head though, and I hope he gets answers, since without further explanation, I have no clue how to schedule my classes. Do I get to use the now-removed course as an option? Should I try and catch up since a number of other courses were slid back to compensate? To make things worse, there was a typo in the calendar, so I'm only reasonably sure that one of the courses I need to take is indeed that course. On top of all that, the course everyone was giddy about not having to take has wormed its way back into the calendar, but that could be because the decision was relatively last minute. Argh. This is so confusing, and I really wish that heads would roll something fierce.
*See, despite how much I hated EE340 (active circuit component stuff; diodes, transistors, etc) it turned out to be the style of course that I excel in, compared to the other courses I was taking that were not of the weekly assignment plus labs plus lectures mold, and I think that has a lot to do with it.
Links, since I'm rather spent
The Museum of Bad Art. This whole institution was apparantly started by one painting, featured prominently on the front page, and I must agree that it is the worst painting I have ever seen. I hope that whoever that painting was of has erased all connection between them and that "artwork".
I should apologize. I thought I was done with the anger and annoyance, but this link just reinvigorates it. For various reasons, this just pisses me off and makes me sick. I'm not going to go into why, but if you've gotten my opinion on corporate sponsorship, ads, marketing and the whole music piracy can of worms, you'll probably have a decent idea. Warren Ellis put it best when he said:
I'm really really late on this one, but I just wanted to point out that I find some perverse, twisted pleasure in knowing Martha Stewart will be in jail. I'm a horrible person for it, and you can flame me if you must, but it still gives me a mild warm feeling. Perhaps it's because she just seemed so smug and self-assured on TV. I could make a crack at redecorating the mess hall with whatever you find around your cell, but I'll refrain. Sort of.
Unwind-ind-ind-ind
I'll finish with random thoughts.
- We need more muppets. Muppets Tonight was a good start, but more is needed. Also, have the special guests actually contribute to the show. That could help. And the "yep yep yep yeeeeeep nope nope noooooope" guys should get more airtime. They rule.
- Don't even try singing along to The Darkness. Not only do normal guys need to castrate themselves, but once you actually read the lyrics and find out what the song is about, the whole listening experience changes.
- I am so totally in support of the sentiment expressed by today's Sinfest.
- IGN should market whatever they're drinking to think that their site looks good when it's all McUglied. Because it looks like purple crap.
Gleh. Going to play Playstation. G'way. ¶ 6:57 p.m.
Yeah, McCain's International pizzas, as cheap and convenient and tasty as they are, are apparantly the devil incarnate when it comes to nutrition. 1/4 of the pizza, according to the back of the box, contains 25% of a person's daily fat intake. This does not seem so good, especially when you consider that the pizza is still small enough for me to need to eat half of it. There's more fat than carbs in this thing though, so I guess it's Atkin's friendly. Don't quote me on that though. Still, compared to the PC Wood Fired pizza (which are small and barren enough to be a meal for one, that one being me, unto themselves), these things are actually quite good. Unlike most oven-pizzas, they actually have toppings, and the crust doesn't taste like petroleum-laced cardboard, which is always a plus. Also, I got to store the remaining half in a plastic bag, instead of my usual, classier Ziplocware. I don't know why that's a good thing, but it is.
Segues, now available without a recall!
Speaking of segues, I don't have any. To quote Greg Froops (sp?) "follow me down the happy trail of topic-changes!" I was watching Rick Mercer tonight, and it turns out he shot most of the show that wasn't in the studio in Edmonton. So now I am homesick after watching all the shots of WEM and the U of A, and he even did his rant on Groat Bridge! As usual, pity may be sent in denominations of 10s and 20s.
Also, I was cruising through HMV, and the discrimination in pricing really seemed to jump out at me today. See, in HMV, and most stores, you have this constant clash between the "flavour-of-the-months", the "always-in-seasons" and the "shelfwarmers". The flavours are the ones with all the stickers on them, and because they're being pimped off to you with great fervor, they are at a great price, and unfortunately are almost always crap. You get the odd deal, but mostly it's just the hot new releases from last month bundled with the crap nobody buys (with good reason). The classics, in contrast, are the good movies that have a strong following in the mainstream. They're mostly good movies, well loved by all, and priced reasonably. The ones I have the beef with though, are the shelfwarmers. These are the diamonds in the rough that nobody ever buys, but it's not because the movies are obscure. See, HMV must think that because these movies are so obscure, nobody will ever buy them, and therefore they must charge more to make up the loss on the few units they do sell to those desperate enough. How else can one justify charging 80 dollars for The City of Lost Children? It's just a simple 2-disc collector's edition, so why is it so much more than the rest? Black Adder was the other one. Yes, it's 860 minutes of the series (the whole thing!), and there is only one copy on the shelf, but 150 dollars seems a little steep to me. Of course, I could just be really cheap.
More segues! They explode when they fall over!
What else was I going to talk about? Oh yes. It's probably just me, but I think it seems really quite egotistical and rather snobbish to try and use all your names. I mean, Micheal Clarke Duncan, F. Murray Abraham, Seann William Scott, you guys are all great actors, but it just sounds really hoity-toity to have three names. If anyone goes up to four, I'ma shoot something.
In the same lines of arrogance, did it not occur to the U of A to perhaps TELL THE STUDENTS WHEN YOU CHANGE ENTIRE COURSE STREAMS??? I get an email today from Kevin the Mighty IBM Guy, who I share courses with, and apparantly the one course that was the target of all my hate last term (and which I did the best in, ironically*) has been removed from the program. This angers Calculon, and I wish the utmost burning to be inflicted on those responsible. Kevin has sent an inquiring email in the direction of the EE Dept head though, and I hope he gets answers, since without further explanation, I have no clue how to schedule my classes. Do I get to use the now-removed course as an option? Should I try and catch up since a number of other courses were slid back to compensate? To make things worse, there was a typo in the calendar, so I'm only reasonably sure that one of the courses I need to take is indeed that course. On top of all that, the course everyone was giddy about not having to take has wormed its way back into the calendar, but that could be because the decision was relatively last minute. Argh. This is so confusing, and I really wish that heads would roll something fierce.
*See, despite how much I hated EE340 (active circuit component stuff; diodes, transistors, etc) it turned out to be the style of course that I excel in, compared to the other courses I was taking that were not of the weekly assignment plus labs plus lectures mold, and I think that has a lot to do with it.
Links, since I'm rather spent
The Museum of Bad Art. This whole institution was apparantly started by one painting, featured prominently on the front page, and I must agree that it is the worst painting I have ever seen. I hope that whoever that painting was of has erased all connection between them and that "artwork".
I should apologize. I thought I was done with the anger and annoyance, but this link just reinvigorates it. For various reasons, this just pisses me off and makes me sick. I'm not going to go into why, but if you've gotten my opinion on corporate sponsorship, ads, marketing and the whole music piracy can of worms, you'll probably have a decent idea. Warren Ellis put it best when he said:
"Fuck Apple, fuck Pepsi, fuck American youth, fuck Green Day, fuck whoever sold "I Fought The Law" to advertising and fuck you too. Fuck you very much, fuck off and die."
I'm really really late on this one, but I just wanted to point out that I find some perverse, twisted pleasure in knowing Martha Stewart will be in jail. I'm a horrible person for it, and you can flame me if you must, but it still gives me a mild warm feeling. Perhaps it's because she just seemed so smug and self-assured on TV. I could make a crack at redecorating the mess hall with whatever you find around your cell, but I'll refrain. Sort of.
Unwind-ind-ind-ind
I'll finish with random thoughts.
- We need more muppets. Muppets Tonight was a good start, but more is needed. Also, have the special guests actually contribute to the show. That could help. And the "yep yep yep yeeeeeep nope nope noooooope" guys should get more airtime. They rule.
- Don't even try singing along to The Darkness. Not only do normal guys need to castrate themselves, but once you actually read the lyrics and find out what the song is about, the whole listening experience changes.
- I am so totally in support of the sentiment expressed by today's Sinfest.
- IGN should market whatever they're drinking to think that their site looks good when it's all McUglied. Because it looks like purple crap.
Gleh. Going to play Playstation. G'way. ¶ 6:57 p.m.
