Category Archives: General

Funny Call of Duty: Black Ops Emblems

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During lunch with a coworker we were trying to find some humorous Call of Duty: Black Ops emblems and quickly discovered that there was no central place for them. So I got the idea to create a Tumblr blog that catered to people like myself and my coworker. Behold, a showcase of human anatomy in primitive shape form, amongst other monstrosities — Funny Call of Duty: Black Ops Emblems

If you or someone you know has a funny emblem, please submit it. The more the merrier.

Just a forewarning: People make a lot of phallus-themed emblems. I’m not responsible if you’re easily offended.

Selective Hearing

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I recently posted a comment on a blog post that tossed around a false and poorly presented accusation of the pop punk/alternative/whatever band Hoobastank. Before I get started please know that I’m not even a Hoobastank fan. I don’t own any of their music or merchandise, nor do I have any sort of affiliation with them. My issue with the accusation was that it was obviously a hoax and I felt that I had to speak up, before the masses played Telephone any longer with the whole thing.

The Lowdown

On Twitter there is a user that goes by the handle @hoobastank_band. For whatever strange reason this user posts numerous irrelevant posts with the #iranelection Twitter hashtag attached to them, and cloaks their mischievous URLs to prevent the not-so-savvy users from knowing what horror lies ahead for them. I’m not going to go into vivid detail as to what is seen once you click their shortened URLs, but I’ll provide a single word for you to Google: ‘goatse’.

In a world where encyclopedias have been replaced by Wikipedia (God help us) and the newspaper has been replaced by Digg, it’s easy to be mislead by subjective source material and unconfirmed tidbits of information. Such is the case with Hoobastank. In a post titled ‘What’s that smell? I think it’s GOATSE and HOOBASTANK‘, I voiced my opinion on the matter accompanied by some common sense and logic. Something some people seem to lack, even when the most paper thin hoaxes pummel them in the face. That’s the beauty of owning your own blog though. You can delete whatever comments you see fit for deletion. Whether they contain profanity or in this case, the obvious truth, it’s up to you. Master of your own domain (bad pun). Oh well, it was a worthy attempt. Fortunately I voiced my same thoughts on the official Hoobastank forum where they won’t be selectively removed at the administrators will. The fact that my post was pro-Hoobastank helps as well.

View the forum post here: ‘Hoobastank? This is seriously despicable of you to do‘ (nice spelling, pal.) (I fail at spelling. Thanks Anon.) Scroll a little ways down and you’ll see my post. In case for some reason my post gets deleted, I’ve included a screenshot.

hoobastank_post

click to enlarge

The thing that kills me about the topic on the Hoobastank forum is that nearly every post in there was immediately condemning Hoobastank for the whole ordeal. Whatever happened to fans? People jump to conclusions too easily. If you’re going to make such a big deal out of something, you should probably do some of your own research prior to setting the buzz ablaze on the web. That blog post currently has 75 diggs. I’ve posted far better material on Digg and barely got anything. Proof that the world thrives on destruction.

So to those of you who are quick to jump on the bandwagon and spread information, check the validity first. Like the saying goes: don’t believe everything you hear (or in this case, read). Not everything on the internet is true. Before you get all up in arms, check the source.

A New URL Registration Scam

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Soldier´s goodbye & Bobbie the cat, ca. 1939-ca. 1945 / by Sam Hood

This picture is completely irrelevant.

We received an email the other day at work from someone trying to sell a URL for a bloated price. It’s a pretty common practice and I’m sure any web designer reading this has encountered it at least once or twice in their career. Companies or individuals that solely make a living off of buying and selling domain names. Fair enough.

This latest method was kind of comical and at the same time it was clever; in a dirty, annoying care salesman kind of way. It starts off like you would expect. “I see that you are the owner of [DOMAINNAME].org…” blah, blah, blah, and then it goes on to the sender talking about how they have ownership of the same domain but in .com format. “Sounds awesome! How much are you sel….50 bucks??” (well, it didn’t really go down like that but I had to make this less boring). To be fair, $50 was a whole lot lower than what I expected the “seller” to want for it. Usually they get greedy.

Out of curiousity, my colleague decided to open up Terminal and run a whois on the domain, just to see if we could get some insight on this “company”. This is the kicker: the domain was available for purchase. So what happened next? I’m sure you’ve already figured it out for yourself, smarty pants. My colleague purchased the domain for 8 bucks. He even had a discount code! Following his victory, he proceeded to send back a response to the aforementioned email. It went something like:

“Thanks for the heads up on the domain”, “We’ve purchased it…”

Hilarity ensued. We never received a reply (wow, shocker) but between me and him we found it to be pretty hilarious in a nerdy kind of web guy way.

In your face!

“Research” Is The New Solicitation

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Why Didn´t You Call Me?

Ring, ring!

As I’m sure plenty of you have done I added my phone numbers to the “do not call” list long ago. Doing so has since served me well and I haven’t received any solicitation calls of any sort at home. Peace and quiet! Until now.

I received a phone call that came from a company with “research” in their name. Caller ID saved me the headache of having to listen to the stupid recording that followed. Basically the culprit identifies themselves as a “marketing research” company and the message even goes as far as to say that they are legally allowed to contact various people because it is not a solicitation; and also that they represent other large companies. To be removed from the call list they provide you with a completely separate phone number to call, which I’m sure is a call center armed with employees waiting to ask you a bunch of questions.

Fail or Win?

Who knows? I may be completely off and they may very well be a legit marketing research company simply gathering information for large corporations and nothing more. Solicitation-esque phone calls are probably not the best way to accomplish this. Being in an industry that relies heavily on marketing and campaigns, I’d probably be more than happy to answer a few simple questions. Getting a call from a recording is not going to get me to do so.

Talk Warranty to Me…

While we’re on the topic of mischievous phone messages and calls, the worst ones of all are the illegitimate vehicle warranty companies.  I’m sure you know the ones I’m referring to. They call you up and pose as the warranty department for whatever dealer you purchased your vehicle from. I’m pretty sure they prey on those who have recently paid off their vehicle, are about to or otherwise. It seems like these phone calls have sloped off considerably though, which is great because I’m pretty darn sure my 6-year-old Ford Ranger is way out of warranty and I really don’t care.

Halloween Horror Nights 2008

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So we arrive at the park and endure the long lines to park and the even longer lines to get through the gates and metal detectors. The overall theme this year is urban legends which is one of the things that turned me onto this. An introduction video to the Bloody Mary Reflections of Fear attraction played repeatedly on a large screen above the metal detectors gate. I think we heard it loop at least 50 times and it was to the point that it was borderline hypnotic.

After enduring the initial lines, we make our way to yet another gate to present our tickets. This is where things get a little hairy for me. Somehow I ended up with a ticket to the Universal Studios in Hollywood California, so I now have to wait in a customer service line and meet up with my cohorts afterwards. I’m a fairly patient individual and I was pretty excited for the whole event, so waiting approximately 40 minutes in this line wasn’t so bad. Unfortunately I had to re-purchase a ticket and the other one would be reimbursed within 7-10 days. Fine, whatever, I don’t care. I’m about to go through a bunch of funhouses and rides, all the while slightly intoxicated (we managed to smuggle 2 flasks into the park and did some drinking prior).

I finally make it back to the ticket gate where my second go is successful (I’d sure hope so!). Meet up with my friends and we’re off. The overall park layout is always awesome and the atmosphere during Halloween is even better. There are a lot of restaurants and little shops along the way ($$$) and there were costumed people all throughout the park. The costumes were all unbelievable. There was a dead tree costume that seemed to catch everyone offguard due to the fact that he would sit still while throngs of people went by, and then carefully choose who he gave chase to. The kicker was that the costume was built so that the one wearing it was on stilts. So you can well imagine how unnerving being chased by a 12-foot tall dead tree is.

Here’s a note to anyone that goes to this event. If you are willing to spring some extra money for an Express Pass to skip the line waits, get it. Most of the wait times were 30 minutes or more. This can really kill a buzz. Fortunately some social people in lines kept us entertained and we’re an outgoing group to begin with.

To shorten up this entry, the funhouses were a lot of what you’d expect. Small hallways, strobe lights, black walls and various random characters. We only attended 2 or 3 of them but I think I only genuinely got scared one time. Other than that we were all laughing or screaming just to scare the shit out of whoever was in front of us (which was quite effective). Overall I would say go to the funhouses and you’ll get a laugh but they’re not worth an hour or more wait when you can go on rides instead.

Our favorite ride of the night was one that had absolutely nothing to do with Halloween Horror Nights. The Mummy is a cross between special effects and an indoor rollercoaster. It’s really awesome. My favorite part on the entire ride was when your cart comes to a halt in a small room where Imhotep breaks a window, says some things I wasn’t paying attention to, some torches light and–get this–the whole ceiling is engulfed in flames, the wall opens up and you’re GONE. It’s awesome. It flies through dark tunnels and catches you offguard every time. It also fires you up a hill similar to the Hulk rollercoaster. I suggest going on this.

The main attraction for the entire event is Bloody Mary’s Reflections of Fear, which is a type of walk-through/funhouse of sorts. If you’re willing to endure a 2-hour wait in line, I would definitely go to this. Unfortunately we weren’t patient enough for this and since the park closed at 2am, we wanted to make the best of our time there. Bummer.

The shows are another must see. We went to 2 shows, both of which were entertaining and interesting. The one show that you HAVE TO ATTEND is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure (don’t bring young children to this. It contains vulgarity and drug references–Yes, drug references). Yeah, I thought the same exact thing: “Am I really at Universal Studios watching a show that has repeated bong references, openly uses the word ‘shit’ and showcases a drunken Hillary Clinton?”. Yep. I’m not going to give away everything but the entire show is basically a spoof on practically every recent celebrity you can think of. Iron Man, The Joker (The Dark Knight), Indiana Jones, The X-Files, Barack Obama and John McCain, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, etc. If there’s one show you can’t skip on your excursion, it’s this one. The other show that we attended was a classic. It was a Rocky Horror Picture Show tribute. Aside from the insane amount of crossdressing and awkwardness, this was entertaining. Obviously if you’re homophobic skip this one altogether. It was really well-done though and the actors and actresses do a great job.

All in all my trip to Halloween Horror Nights was a blast. You can’t go wrong with good friends, some alcohol, funhouses, rides and the nightlife. Just don’t expect to be scared in the funhouses unless you’re the type that scares easily. I’m not.

BloqParty.net Launched

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BloqParty is a community geared towards the discussion of pretty much everything-including technology, sports, clothing and fashion, graphic and web design, video games, movies and anything else within reason. The intent of it at this moment is to keep a once thriving community’s comradery alive and to also invite new members to the mix. I plan on promoting it more and more over time and am considering other avenues of networking to get the word out.

If you’re not already a member, make sure to stop by and check it out some time. bloqparty.net

Hurry Up and Wait

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Now we’re going to skip a few steps ahead so that I can save you from reading the unexciting procedures involved in a web project. So we’ve got an approved mockup and we’re to the point where we’re inputting, arranging and formatting content as needed. Now we’re at a stopping point: a small list of pages are incomplete due to the fact that the client fails to deliver on their end. You try endlessly to squeeze the material out of them but to no avail. No promised photography delivered (even after offering photograhpy services to try and peak interest), no text content, not even an outline to give direction on the now stale and empty pages that halt the entire train.

The dust settles?

Months go by and you’ve since closed out the project and billed the client for whatever time may have gone above and beyond the aforementioned deposit. Fair enough. That’s how a normal business works and this is brought to the client’s attention on numerous occasions.

Then one day, out of the blue, the client emails you and expects you to immediately continue production on their website, even though you’ve still not received the photographs and content they’ve promised on 2-3 prior occasions. Of course your current projects are going to take precedence because that’s the way things work. It’s pretty self-explanatory. So you tell them that you currently can’t take on their project until a later time due to the vast amount of work you have at hand. Client reluctantly agrees and disappears back into the busy black abyss that procrastinating clients like to fall back on when they can’t admit that they’re, well, procrastinators.

The email

Time passes and you continue to work on the projects of importance. Not to say that anyone else is unimportant but when you, the client, can’t find the time to at least organize material for the website you claim to be so important to you, then you fall by the wayside and your level of importance diminishes slightly. This should be common business sense. Then one day you receive the irate email. The one that contains things like

"you’ve put me off", "I want my website on disc", "very unhappy customer", etc.

Let’s rewind for a second. This is the client that falls off the face of earth as if the world were flat and they were sailing with a blindfold on. The client that promises you material and never delivers. The client that repeatedly makes the excuse "I’ve just been so busy…". Yes, the procrastinator. The one that makes the project out to be of the utmost importance and then disappears into the night as if they were Batman himself. Hurry up and wait. And now, me, the designer, is the one at fault. I’m the one that put said client off and shunned them aside as if their project were of no significance.

Need I say more?

Seriously, do I need to say anything else? Is my frustration and anger not justified? To some people it may seem petty but it’s something of a pet peeve of mine. I hate taking the heat for something when I’ve held my end up. It’s something that urks me to no end.

End of rant.