Gaming Weekend

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If you’re wondering where I’ve been, it’s probably because you’re not reading Tunnels of Doom, my gaming website. I can’t really fault you if you aren’t reading because you don’t like games, but since most of my time lately has been spent either working—which has involved a significant, if temporary, lifestyle adjustment; and trying to recover from working—which I’ve mostly accomplished by playing and writing about games. Actually, there may be some additional news in that vein coming soon, but I can’t say anything at the moment… mostly for fear of jinxing things.

Anyway, I’ve just posted my most recent game journal which is my weekly wrapup of the games I’m playing and my thoughts on related subjects that I call the Gaming Weekend. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s no secret that I’ve been coveting an HD TV for a couple of years now. But lately it’s starting to become more like a consuming obsession as it has seeped into my dreams and caused thoughts of a dark and sinister nature. A few months back my wife and I were talking about it and I came up with a perfectly reasonable plan which involved paying off an existing debt (which should happen by January) and using the money we’re accustomed to paying toward that debt to save for an HD TV, instead of applying that money back into our general fund. She agreed and it was a perfectly reasonable plan. It was really beyond reasonable: It was—and is—a very good plan. Responsible. Practical. Mature.

But also entirely unbearable. I’ve noted with pained powerlessness that Amazon.com is selling the exact model of HD TV I crave (the Samsung LN-T4661F for those keeping track) for a reasonable $2,000 with free shipping. I can do nothing, as it is not part of the plan to take advantage of fabulous short-term deals. I’ve taken stock of our savings account which contains sufficient funds for not only a new TV but also an HD-capable A/V reciever, speakers and probably a PS3 as well (for the Blu-Ray, obviously). Yet those savings are for the ephemeral “future” and not part of the plan. No matter how I slice it, there is no loophole in the plan, and the plan’s only flaw is that it requires discipline and patience which, normally I have an ample supply of but when matters of superhot technology are concerned, I draw from a pool so dry it cannot even be classified as a desert, they must invent a new type of landscape whose definition consists of “a place where moisture is only an abstract, theoretical concept.”

My only approach now is to try as hard as I can to convince myself that I have done everything there is to do: I’ve exhausted all avenues, I’ve searched for any chink in the armor of the plan and found it impregnable. This can only indicate that the plan is good and foolproof and should be adhered to fastidiously and without reservation.

I didn’t say it was a good approach, I said it was my only approach. It is either that or madness, and I’ve already spent that token, long ago, when the Earth was young.

Trippy

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  • I love stuff like this. Recursive!
  • So I’ve been trading games on Goozex quite a bit. One bad thing is that it’s often easier to request that people send you games without their original case and/or packaging. But I like having a case for my games. Fortunately I found this site which in turn directed me to this page on Nintendo’s website where you can get blank, empty DS cases for less than a buck apiece.
  • I also discovered, on that note, that your neighborhood GameStop/EB Games does not sell the translucent green DVD cases that XBox 360 games come in. But if you ask nicely they have a huge supply of them on hand and will probably give you a few of them for free. Slightly less scrupulous employees may need to be greased for a couple of bucks.
  • Hey, lookit some babies eating lemons.
  • There is something woefully disingenuous about a machine that tells me I smell nice.
  • Nothing can forgive me for the fact that I inexplicably love the Go Meat! commercials.
  • Fun with bad translations (note: the ads on that site are a bit dubious).
  • What? No. I mean… I can’t… Buh. Grp. Fi-ie-ie-ie-awt. Ow, my head.

Hope your day is as surreal as mine.

Seven Year Itch

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I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after several days of fearfully rapid reading, concerned for the inevitability that the fate of the beloved characters would somehow be revealed to me ahead of time. Mercifully, I made it through without issue and now wish to discuss. But in the interest of those who have not yet finished and don’t want even a chance of spoiling the end, I’ll use the under-used (on ironSoap, at least) jump to prevent inadvertent plot leaks because I don’t want to be held back from the conversation.

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Commence Curmudgeon

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It’s been an exceptionally trying several months. I’ll spare you the long version; if curiosity overwhelms you I can be coaxed to reveal the Cliff’s Notes version via email. But as is often the case, more mundane matters have remained active in my frontal lobes and these are the kinds of pointless and uninteresting things that fabricate the cornerstones of our virtual communication.

It occurs to me that I owe you an apology.

  • I’ve come across a glut of “geek shame” lately, manifest in faux book covers for the upcoming Harry Potter book, eye-rolling disdain from video gamers when confronted with the reality of some new downloadable games based on German-style classics like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, that sort of thing. What always strikes me as ironic about all of this is that we have people who are posting on Internet forums whose primary topics are video games, Linux operating systems, iPod hacking, HDTV specifications and the like. Judging others or fearing being judged at this stage in the game? Really? You don’t think it’s a little late in the game for that particular concern to be crossing your mind, forum-monkey?
  • The Mac mini that functions as our primary household computer is starting to really annoy me. I can’t quite figure out what the issue is but it runs at a glacial pace with frequent beach-ball pauses. It’s especially apparent when trying to deal with iTunes which happens to be one of the primary apps the machine was intended to run. In terms of clock speed the mini far outpaces my aging iBook but I’ve gone to great lengths to upgrade the RAM in the iBook as high as it will allow and it doesn’t have nearly the same level of problems, even running multiple memory-hungry apps simultaneously. I know people are going to start to wonder about me after my last iPhone rant and now this, but it frustrates me that Apple’s base configurations for new computers are comically lacking in RAM. I mean, a new 1.66 GHz mini with 512 MB of RAM? What are we, neanderthals? And it costs like $250 to upgrade to a reasonable (but still not what I’d call “upgrade level”) amount of 2GB. Comparable Dell machines come standard with 1GB and allow upgrades to 2GB for $100. Listen, I get the whole “Macs cost more” meme, I really do, but this is RAM we’re talking about here. You can find 256MB sticks lying discarded on most sidewalks, so I really don’t think getting a normal amount of it should cost half as much as my system… especially when minis really aren’t supposed to be upgraded by the consumer.
  • I happened to catch an episode of the World Series of Pop Culture yesterday and one of the categories involved the bad-movie awards show The Razzies. The very next category involved the film The Breakfast Club. The announcer, after having the contestants do really well with both remarked, “It seems you know your bad movies and your good ones.” Call me a heretic, but can someone explain to me the appeal of The Breakfast Club? Or John Hughes movies in general? Look, I missed out on those during the 80s when they were I guess influencing everyone else from my generation but I’ve since been subjected to nearly all of them and I just don’t get it. They aren’t that funny, they don’t really touch some chord that strikes at the inner workings of high school life (at least not any high school I ever saw) and they all feature really whiney characters that I want to slap rather than root for. Did I just have to be there at the time or what?
  • Which reminds me: The Goonies is a terrible movie. Sorry folks, it just is, and I think it’s time we acknowledged that fact. Listen, it’s cool: I used to think that Flight of the Navigator was totally radical but I came to my senses eventually. I’m not even saying you can’t still watch it and think about how good you used to believe it was, but stop trying to convince people that there was some cinematic magic going on there. I guarantee you that at some point in the future some kid is going to post on the Internet v4.5 a dissertation on how incredible and influential The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D was back in the halcyon days of 2005. I swear to you, that’s exactly how you sound right now.
  • It’s been like National Bad Service Month for Nik and I lately. Yesterday’s gems included a pair of Target employees who couldn’t answer the yes or no question of, “Do you guys have an Arts & Crafts section?” The reason? They were out (which I can only assume means off their shift or on a break) and, instead of answering, choose instead to take the time to explain that we needed to ask someone from Home and Garden. Also at a sandwich shop I tried to order a Diet Pepsi and had the girl who was manning the register grunt and gesture as she tried to decipher my incredibly complex order because, apparently, she had never before heard or heard of the English language. At one point she mentioned something about bananas. I drank what she gave me but I was very wary of it, fearing some sort of tropical fruit-related cola incident.

Does This Mean They Take Away My Membership?

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Man, I simply don’t understand it all. The fervor over the iPhone has culminated into a painful hum that assaults my eardrums and eyesockets no matter where I turn or go. Every website in existence, no matter its base subject matter, has some sort of coverage or commentary or sniveling longing regarding this device; I turn on the TV to escape and CNN has become the 24-hour iPhone network. I change the channel—somewhere safe, like Animal Planet perhaps. In between ubiquitous iPhone commercials they have Bindi Erwin’s precious (precocious? I always get those two confused) mug demonstrating how she’s taught an orangutan to use the simple gestures-based navigation to check her email (kiki@primate.org).

I shudder and retreat to bed, pulling the sheets high over my head despite the summer heat. Outside my window I hear a neighbor greet a passerby on the sidewalk: “Did you get your iPhone yet? Have you seen the visual voicemail?” They then squeal and giggle and I imagine they have drawn close together, slapping at each other’s hands and stamping their feet in spastic glee before smoothing their brylcreem’d hair and readjusting their power ties. Death does not spontaneously strike to relieve me.

The frustrating thing is that I’m usually right there with them: This is Apple after all, and my love for the company and their smooth industrial design contours is well known throughout the land. Make no mistake, among the generic media white noise directed at me only because I belong to the mercurial entity known as the public there has been a steady flux of pointed questions which all orbit the central query: “So. Are you getting an iPhone?” The assumption here is that my Apple devotion makes this a given and they direct their question to me in a wary, steeled manner that indicates they fully expect a sermon which elucidates point-by-point the wonders of an Apple-branded mobile phone.

They get a sermon, all right, and you are now subject to a digital representation of its finer points, so it’s not really what they expect. I guess I like to keep people guessing.

I, of course, realize the irony in adding to the din about this device with my own naysaying. But my status as a “hater” is not one I relish. Would that I simply drank the Kool-Aid like a typical Apple consumer, hands cupped over ears and nonsense pouring loudly from my vocal cords to mask the cries of those who would take my place. I find I’m even arguing with myself on occasion. “For all it’s shortcomings, it’s still revision number one,” I say, ignoring the startled looks from others in line at the bank who cannot discern whom I’m directing my comments toward. “Apple is known for underwhelming first gen devices. Maybe by this time next year you’ll sing a different song.” I find myself pleased that I’ve quickly moved to the front of the line, but dismayed that all windows seem suddenly devoid of tellers. Strange, that.

But even with Apple’s predictable track record, I still don’t find myself getting very excited by the prospect of a cell phone. I can see the appeal in a convergent device, that’s for sure. But consider the Cingular 8525 for a moment. WiFi, 2 megapixel camera, full qwerty keyboard, bluetooth, large and spacious screen: Check, check and check some more. So far we’re close in feature list to the iPhone. Then there’s the 3G, expandable micro SD slot and integrated flash for the camera which, you may note, are all things that the iPhone lacks. Sure, it doesn’t have the spiffy touchscreen (it does have a cool slide-out keyboard thing happening, though) and it lacks the hefty hard drive for all that music-playing joy.

But then again, it’s only $300 which means I could buy it, an 8GB iPod nano ($250) and a 1 GB micro SD card to store extra stuff like Windows Mobile apps (did I mention the iPhone has no third-party application support outside of browser-based ones?) and still save $35 compared to the iPhone. Since you can’t use your iPod songs as ringtones on the iPhone anyway, I’m not losing any features there and from what I understand I might actually be able to check my email on the 8525 without hucking it against the wall.

Yes, I know, the comparisons sound remarkably like the ones people make when Apple people (like myself, let’s not forget) start talking about OSX. Or the iPod. Apple fans love to wail about the user experience: “Interface is king!” We cry, trying to hide our cracking voices underneath a muffled cough. I certainly don’t want to undermine the arguments I myself have made in the past but in this case I just don’t see that Apple is doing what Apple does best. Touch screens? Really?

Really?

Is there something fundamentally broken about the precision of the well-used stylus? Is the vaunted iPod click wheel somehow already obsolete? Have we already grown weary of the arcane and ancient button with tactile feedback? Are these relics truly ready to be put out to pasture? Perhaps you don’t have to navigate the world with my stubby and greasy fingers, worn slick from years of nearly constant application of Kleenex to nose to stem the tide of my allergy-collecting nasal passages (yes, the collection has grown quite large, thank you for asking!) but primitive though I may be, I still like interacting even with abstractions like electronic interfaces via some tool. I hope the 8525 can withstand the abuse of being dragged, along with my knuckles, along the ground.

Naturally the iPhone does do something… uh, righter than the competition and that is provide a robust and long-lasting battery solution. Judging solely on the performance of my once-awesome and now hopelessly mundane RAZR, plugging a phone in once every two days sounds, when you say it out loud, like a pittance of a chore—it very nearly relinquishes its chore status when you put it that way. But I assure you that is only the case if it were possible to apply some degree of leeway to that requirement. When you use your cell phone as your primary (read: sole) means of voice communication, a dead phone is an affront to your ability to function in society. I don’t know why exactly this is so. But faced with the prospect of severance from humanity or eating lunch, I often find myself racing home with my stomach growling like that dog in Cujo, eyes flitting down to the blinking battery indicator on my phone, glowing an angry red (also like the eyes of the dog in Cujo) and marking the countdown to my dissolution as a modern person. There is no sustenance here save at the business end of a grounded, three-prong electrical outlet.

Is a nine-hour battery worth the media blitz that haunts my nightmares?

Is there any chance that I won’t, at some distant point in the future, own an iPhone and find myself filled with shame for the words I’ve written today?

No. And no.

Or, as an Alternative, Your Movie is Garbage

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I’ve talked about horror movies before and I even reacted to my viewing of the original Hostel with a heated rant. I didn’t mention the movie by name at the time, but that’s what I had just seen that prompted the post. And you know, since that time I haven’t watched a lot of the trash that’s being peddled as “horror” but which is just graphic torture and I’ve been much happier for it. I miss good horror movies (okay, that’s a strange phrase in itself but let’s not quibble over the limitations of language at the moment), but whatever. I can always catch monster pictures on Netflix or wherever.

So anyway, it’s no surprise that I had less than zero interest in the sequel to Hostel (cleverly titled Hostel: Part II). I literally loathed the first with its utter absence of subtlety or sense of humor, its moronic excuse for suspense and its urban-legend-like attempt to prey on American arrogance. Stand in line for a sequel? Not a chance.

Well it turns out the movie isn’t doing so well. So writer/director Eli Roth starts whining on his blog about piracy, the movie industry’s lack of support for the R-rated horror film and how he’s going to be all busy so his (ahem) fans should surge into theaters to see it so it gets the support he so obviously deserves while they still have a chance to experience his work.

I have a thought. Maybe—and I’m going out on a limb here—your movie just plain ol’ sucks? Ever consider that?

Now, I haven’t seen it (nor am I going to… I told you before, I’m done with this kind of horror movie) so I can’t really say one way or the other, but a lot of reviews have stated that the movie is basically a rehash of the first, which for once is in keeping with the tradition of horror movies. But whether it is or isn’t, I doubt they’d mix up the formula much. This is Hollywood, after all, and they aren’t known for breaking new ground very often and when it comes to a sequel their willingness to try something new is laughable… almost oxymoronic considering what a sequel really is. But I think we can safely assume that it’s at least similar.

Roth gripes that it’s all piracy that makes his movie unpopular because people are watching an unfinished cut online instead of paying to see it in the theaters. I find that highly unlikely, but let’s assume for a minute that there were hordes of people watching the film without any music or post-production effects: It stands to reason that if the movie were unfinished but really good, people who had enough interest in it to download it would think, “I gotta go see the final version!” Not to mention that he’s citing the same ol’ argument that people who pirate stuff are those who would have otherwise paid to see it which is difficult to prove at best. I submit that people who download stuff are those who would maybe, someday have spent money on it but are for the time being only really interested in getting a peek and seeing if it’s worth further investment.

But okay, let’s ignore the reviews and let’s grant Roth that his movie is suffering because of (sigh) piracy on the Internet. Let’s say he has the very best torture-horror movie ever. Isn’t it possible that there are a lot of people like me—people who might even describe themselves as fans of horror movies—who saw the first one (it did make a good amount of money) but decided, based on that movie, that either a) They weren’t into that kind of thing or b) Roth himself isn’t the gift to splatter pictures that he thinks he is? Wouldn’t that explain the lackluster box office numbers just as well as these Internet rogues with their copies of Bittorrent?

And I’m sorry but the whole “movie industry hates R-rated horror movies” is such junk that I’m surprised it isn’t a scene in one of Roth’s illustrious films. Listen to me carefully, those who perceive Hollywood persecution of your favored style or subgenre: Hollywood doesn’t care one iota about your label. You know what Hollywood cares about? Money. That’s it. It’s not a secret, it’s not some cabal of overlords ruling against some subset of motion pictures or another in secret entertainment tribunals, it’s just the bottom line. So—stay with me here, Mr. Roth, this is going to be important for your career—when the people don’t like something (and by people I mean the movie-going public; the audience), Hollywood doesn’t like something.

Fortunately! There is a remedy, and it’s remarkably simple.

Don’t make crappy movies.

Or, I guess in this case, don’t make crappy movies more than once. People are weird, you know? They’ll see something different or new just to be a part of the water cooler conversation. I’m guessing that’s all Hostel was: Water cooler conversation. Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Roth, did you believe your own hype, that you had made some kind of dawn-of-a-new-era cinematic masterpiece? No, I think you made something that surprised some people and got them talking. But then a second went by and their collective attention span turned to American Idol or Brangelina or the new Spider-Man movie or whatever. So you came back to a collective “meh?”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Oh Yeah?

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Apparently this is the explanation behind the bizarre “Peter can’t fly himself to safety” aspect of the Heroes season finale.

Listen, Tim: “Suspension of disbelief” is when we accept that there are people with genetic mutations that allow them to pass through walls and shoot radioactive fire from their hands. It is not when you cheat and change the rules you made up because you want something to happen that isn’t necessary to your show’s internal logic.

Stupid.

Heroes and Goats

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Topic the first: Doug Wilson seems to be waffling a bit on what to do about his team’s embarrassing exit from the post season. At least he’s not all sunshine and roses over Ron Wilson’s performance, so that’s one good thing. But I was serious in my rant against Ron: I think he’s got to shoulder the responsibility for not lighting the fire in the Detroit series. People kind of overlooked his role in the loss to Edmonton last year but it was quite clear that this roster wasn’t missing much in the way of talent and depth so if a team like that slides pitifully from the playoffs you have no choice but to look at the coaching staff and say, “Dude. What happened?”

The second topic is Heroes, so if you don’t wish to be spoiled as to the show or, more specifically, the season finale then you may want to quit reading now.

So, some people hated the finale. I didn’t hate it exactly, but I understand part of the sentiment. It’s tough to really express why the last episode was such a let down when almost everything leading up to it was so very good. But I knew there was trouble when they took a commercial break at 8:50 pm and they still hadn’t gotten to the climactic confrontation we all knew was coming.

I think the main problem was that for the first time I felt like the writers cheated, and they did so in what should have been the most pivotal scene in the whole season. TVAddict mentions the implausibility of how the fight with Sylar went down and those gripes are very valid. Sylar and Peter both seemed to conveniently find and lose powers as suited the writers which is a good way to annoy a loyal audience. I’m not trying to make this as inflammatory as it may sound, but this is part of why Lost is suffering from backlash: Because they conveniently ignore plot elements that they introduced whenever it suits them. Episodic shows demand that their writers not be lazy and resort to copping out of inconvenient story elements just because they don’t suit what they’re trying to do presently.

I do think the TVAddict was flat wrong with a lot of complaints, and was taken appropriately to task in the comments on that post. But the main points that didn’t sit well with me were as follows:

  • Peter can fly. We’ve already established plainly that he actually possesses the powers he absorbs and requires no proximity, so Nathan’s last-minute heroics should have been unnecessary. Some have suggested that Peter can’t use more than one power at a time and Ted’s radioactive surge was taking up his “power slot.” That’s a fairly flimsy explanation since he seemed to be both invisible and heal himself when Claude threw him off the roof earlier, at least that’s what Isaac’s painting indicated but we can’t really tell because the show used the device of actually showing the invisible characters for the benefit of the audience so it’s not really clear (hurr…) one way or the other. In any case, it wasn’t explained and without some kind of clarification Nathan’s heroics came across as kind of idiotic instead, undermining what I gathered was supposed to be a key moment for the character.
  • All of which is kind of moot when you consider that it was never explained why Peter was occasionally able to control Ted’s powers. And I don’t mean it wasn’t adequately explained, I mean that unless I missed a key scene (there was about two minutes at the beginning of Chapter 22 that I missed due to a TiVo mishap, I suppose it could have been there but I doubt it) it was never explained at all. Especially since none of the other powers he absorbed went wildly out of his control like that; Peter’s ability seemed in fact to be far superior to Sylar’s in that he didn’t need an understanding of a power’s function in order to utilize it. He certainly didn’t consciously work to figure out how to use Claire’s healing ability nor did he have any problem un-invisible-izing when he wanted. That Ted’s power seemed so volatile—and only to Peter as well; note that Sylar never seemed to struggle with it—was lazy work on the part of the writers.
  • Nathan’s change of heart was terribly executed. I recognize that it probably seemed more dramatic on paper to have him show up out of the blue like that, but it did several things: It made him seem like an inconsistent character. Pardon my geek, but if this were a scenario in a Heroes role-playing session and I was acting as GM, I’d dock the player controlling Nathan experience points for acting out of character. What, up until that very moment, suggested that he would a) Turn his back on The Plan at the last moment, b) Leave behind his wife and kids, c) Sacrifice himself hours after having achieved his dream of being elected to congress? Especially when—and I could be wrong about this, I’d have to watch it again to know for sure—I think that he was operating under the impression that Sylar was the bomb, not Peter. He would have had no reason to get involved or even show up in the plaza.
  • I recognize this is a comic book-esque show so you can’t take these things for granted but I assume we’re to believe Peter and Nathan are dead. This poses a problem with the show going forward in that we’ve seen how their mother is involved in the machinations but she’s not a very good character by herself and was only mostly tolerable as kind of the devil on Nathan’s shoulder to Peter’s angel. The familial connection is now limited to Claire and I don’t see Claire spending any more time with her since she’s been reunited with Bennett. Her presence on the show has the potential to be unwelcome next season. What I’m getting at is that I sure hope one of them survived. Fortunately, if the alternate future episode is any indication, Peter can live through the blast.
  • While we’re on the topic of living and dying, I’m wishing that Sylar would have just kicked the bucket. They nicely set up next season’s villain so I’m not sure why they need him around. Also, DL has worn out his welcome and I’m a bit disappointed that he seemed to pull through.
  • They wasted too much time with Hiro’s training. And even with all of that, it still felt forced and weak.
  • The scene with Peter’s flashback/dream/whatever that included the old man from earlier in the season was… clumsy to say the least. What exactly was happening there? Why was it significant? Why the whole John Lennon vibe? And why oh why can’t there be at least one character on the show who is not either a superhero or somehow tangled up in the conspiracy? Isn’t anyone in this world just normal? I guess the only ones were Simone and Ando, but she’s dead now and he seems to have been kind of written out. Figures.

But, I’m not all disappointment and angst. There were some good parts to the finale:

  • The foreshadowing of the next bad guy I mentioned was fantastic and appropriately creepy. Granted, that little girl is kind of creepy anyway with her big gums and freakishly small teeth, but it was a well-written scene that worked on every level.
  • I guess Niki and Jessica merged finally? At any rate Niki used the super strength and they seem to be coming to a sort of balance. It makes her character less annoying.
  • Some people (like TVAddict) disliked the reveal for HRG’s first name. Not me, I thought it was wonderfully done and a somehow appropriate name. The problem with leaving it mysterious is that stuff like that ends up getting really awkward the longer the character remains an integral part of the show. Look at some of the scenes with the Cigarette Smoking Man in the X-Files once he’s become a major character and you’ll see what I mean.

So the end result is a phenomenal season of TV with a sort of disappointing climax. I guess that makes the entire first season “pretty good”? I dunno, I still like the show and I’ll definitely be back in the fall, but I kind of hope they get a lot of flak for how they handled this important piece of the puzzle so they know next year that a great set up with a lame payoff equals grouchy fans.

Perhaps on the upside, I’m not that excited about the “Generations” premise to season two so maybe it will have just an okay set up but a really spectacular climax. Would I like that better? Hm. I don’t know. Why can’t the whole thing be awesome?

Stupid TV.

The Usual Hybernation

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Following the Sharks’ annual ouster from the playoffs I usually get kind of quiet around here. I’m sure part of it has to do with all the Sharks talk that precedes their inevitable failure leaving little more to say once they finally succumb to their own mediocrity. Plus, I tend to make it a point to do other stuff besides think about sports once I’ve been let down once again and coming back to the site is a harsh reminder of the hope and promise I held a few short weeks ago.

But life goes on and I haven’t been entirely silent since I’ve been filling up my video game journal these last few weeks. I suppose it makes no sense to have a separate place to talk about video games and not sports since I’d guess there are just as many people who couldn’t care less about the Sharks as there are people who couldn’t care less about XBox or whatever. Let’s face it, most of what I’m interested in writing about is of no interest to anyone, anywhere, ever. Perhaps I should just accept that and recognize the futility of trying to cater to a readership which, frankly, doesn’t exist.

At least in this case I’ve already started keeping ’em separated so there’s no sense stopping now. I’m just saying.

While I wouldn’t call my general lack of postiness a problem exactly, it does bely a general apathy toward the kind of daily updates that are in theory the point of ironsoap.org. Even then, apathy isn’t exactly the right word. I don’t want to get all meta the way I used to with existential angst over the deeper meaning of the blog or whatever. All I’m saying is that I have things I want to relate and stories I might be interested in telling but there is a curious clash between three distinct desires: One is the desire to chronicle myself as has been the historical focus of this site. Two is the intention of writing in some sort of functional capacity, be it creating a novel or writing for other outlets (paid or unpaid). Three is the basic inclination to save thoughts and ideas for use in actual conversation with other humans.

Here’s what I mean: If I write down the little thoughts and theories that occur to me regularly and post them here, I find that I feel discussing them in person with people is somewhat redundant. Are they simply being polite and letting me carry on when they’ve already read the Cliff’s Notes version online? Meanwhile, if I spend the time I have writing these blog entries is that actively preventing me from using my “writing time” for projects that might better benefit me or, ultimately, be more satisfying from a creative standpoint? In either case, my desire to have a repository where I can keep some of the random ideas I come up with is steadfast and maybe useful to others? It’s difficult to separate oneself from it enough to come up with any useful conclusions.

The exacerbating factor is that I’m not really digging on my “day” job with the kind of enthusiasm I’d hoped for. Whenever this is the case I tend to romanticize the act of creating (especially writing) to an unhealthy degree and feel that if I just had that one break I could be ridiculously happy tapping away my thoughts and ideas for a living. Logically I know this is a zillion to one chance and rife with pitfalls and hardships along the way which, compared to my generally comfortable existence, isn’t nearly as attractive as it seems. Not to mention the fact that while I enjoy it immensely, I’m aware of my considerable shortcomings regarding the skill of writing. And no, I’m not fishing for compliments so don’t bother.

In fact—and I’m going to be more honest about my intentions here than I usually am—I confess that part of my melancholy regarding the site is that it isn’t likely to merit compliments were I to fish for them anyway. Nor does it merit debate when I wax controversial. Nor does it seem to merit much at all. I guess I was told often enough as a youngster that I was a talented writer that I started to feel that if I just put writing out there, whatever it was, people would recognize said talent and come flocking for more. I had daydreams of phantom phone calls from publishing houses and news journals asking—no, begging for my services. That my “audience” consists entirely of a handful of old friends and my family and has remained so for five years of pretty consistent updating has been an unmistakable indication that my “talent” either does not exist or exists at a level indiscernible from the millions of others who probably had the exact same fantasy.

On any given day I’m fine with this: Complaints from someone as blessed as I must sound like the pestering whine of a mosquito in the ear. Please, swat me away. However the examination of this phenomena (or lack of any phenomena I suppose) reveals that the issue lies in the fundamental assumptions: Namely, I’m not a remarkable writer and I probably don’t really have anything all that interesting to say.

Which leads back to the earlier issue which is that maybe the problem is the blog gets in my way. Maybe I need to work harder on more formal writings, maybe I need to sever the ties with the loose-format, disposable post dashed off in a few minutes of downtime. Perhaps I just need to stop using writing time to get introspective about sports teams or video games. Or, maybe it’s just a silly pipe dream anyway and what I should be doing is paying more attention to my work instead of feeding wild flights of fancy about jobs I’m woefully unqualified for.

Anyway, it’s unlikely to matter as I’ll forget all about my current sour mood in time and go back to cheerful obscurity as I intensely debate the merits of the new Transformers movie or something to my audience of three. Whatever the case, thanks for sticking with me. I don’t say it enough, but I’m honored you care enough to let me bother you now and then. Sorry I can’t make it more worth your while.

This is the End, My Friend

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At first I was a frothing mass of pure vitriol; unbridled anger. Every single thing I was afraid of had come to pass and Yet Another Disappointing Season had come to a bitter end.

But as I seethed I made my way upstairs to shave my playoff beard, the itchy uncomfortable thing that was making the onset of summer less than welcome. Its presence was a show of solidarity. Being bald, my primary hairstyle is shaven but a shaved head and full beard is an odd combo so I had attended to neither region since the day before the Sharks clinched a playoff berth late in the season.

Something odd happened then. As tufts of my scraggly beard and patchy hair tumbled away into the trash bin, so did my rage. A calm, familiar sense of resignation was left beneath the sheen of excess human fur. Yes, we’ve been here before. Many times. Many, many times indeed.

The primary difference this year is that instead of lobbing hatred at Chris “Cheap Shot” Pronger or some random zebra, my frustration was all internal to the team. My team. I could pick out a handful of players who I felt were without much fault but I was surprised to find my resentment was, for once, all centered on the group as a whole because honestly I felt that more than anything they just dropped the ball. They rolled over, they let it get away… they simply didn’t want it. But I did. I wanted it. For a short time I had let myself believe it could happen, this time. This year.

How silly, of course. This is the Bay Area. This is never The Year. But I forgot that, and now I was fighting bitterness. The calm that grew as I showered the bits of hair from my shoulders and then moved to lather my face with foam and scrape away over a month’s worth of remaining stubble perhaps grew in tandem with the realization that I was, for the most part, mad at myself for caring. For holding out hope that was un-earned. What, other than a pretty good regular season, was the basis for my dream of watching the Sharks in the Finals? Expert analysis from talking heads who have fewer functioning cognitive abilities than some dust mites I’ve known? A single series against a team they beat with a deeply flawed execution, especially on the critical special teams?

No, the signs were there. This was not The Year. Had they managed to stumble into a victory over the Red Wings the hated Ducks with their despised defenseman would have made short work of them. And so my hostility was directed at myself for slipping into uncharacteristic optimism, even if only in my mind. But the realization had a healing effect. Of course they lost. Why be grouchy? It was as is always expected: No matter what else, the teams I want to win will always find a way to lose. So it goes.

The time for reflection and specifically directed anger is not now. Now is the time to say congratulations to the Red Wings: They certainly earned it. Hasek was excellent, and deserves kudos for his performance. They clearly wanted it more, even if their idiot fans don’t deserve it. You can’t hold that against the team. I hope they go on to oust the Ducks, just because I really do hate the Ducks.

My dad has a theory that you can’t feel too badly if you lose to the team that ends up winning it all. After all, they are the best so perhaps there is some consolation in thinking you might have been second best. Sometimes that line of thinking helps. Not this time. I do want the Wings to make it to the Finals, but I hope they’re soundly trounced there by Buffalo. Vengeful? Maybe.

But sue me, my team just got booted from the post season. I have a right to a little bit of angst.

To: Head Coach, San Jose Sharks

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Dear Ron Wilson,

Let me dispense with the niceties. You and your Sharks are really starting to anger me. You’re a good coach, they’re a good team, blah blah blah. The fact is, good on paper or good in the regular season is like Tiger Woods schooling his friends at Putt-Putt. So what? Show me the point. No, the only time skill and talent matter is when a tournament of champions is on the line and at this moment, it is as close to being on the line as it is going to get this year.

My question—my only question—is what are you going to do about it?

Oh I heard that you “called some players out.” Of course, you didn’t name any names, so there was that whole ambiguity thing. I’m sure you probably meant Patrick Marleau, but did he get the message? Since he still doesn’t have a point this series, I’m going to guess not. Maybe you meant Bill Guerin, too, but now he’s hurt so it doesn’t matter.

And I know you keep preaching the gospel of desire, where he who wants it most gets it. But you know what? I’m pretty sure every coach in every playoff series for every team has recited that sermon. This isn’t something new you’ve stumbled on here, Magellan, it’s straight from the Grand Tome of Sports Cliches and Overused Hyperbole. Chapter 8: The Playoff Speeches, page 264.

So maybe enough talk. Listen, you guys got worked on Saturday afternoon. Worked. Pwned, in online gamer parlance. 4-1 was a generous score. It easily could have been 6-1 or 7-1 the way you idiots played after the 10 minute mark in the first period. In a way, I wish it had been worse. Maybe a little embarrassment like that 8-0 slaughter against the lowly Coyotes would have gone a long way to lighting the fire under your guys. Or you.

Did I mention I’m prepared to hold you responsible if you can’t pull this series out of your hat? Let me put it this way: You have to do something and you have to do it Monday. The talk means nothing. The talk does nothing. If you want to call someone out, do it plainly, and get in their face about it. Here, let me get you started.

Kyle McLaren: Get off your rear or go home. You know that cute little ice-sprawl you did that directly paved the way for goal number three? Stop it. Blocking pucks is good, but lying around like you’re waiting for your masseuse to show up is a great way to take yourself out of the play. Jolly good show, that. And while we’re at it, let’s talk about hitting. You know that patented hip check you used to love to throw before everyone in the league figured it out and started giving you a clear shot at the boards instead with just a little stutter-step? Well if that was your only trick then head on back to Boston, chump. We don’t need ya. But here’s a hint: There are lots of opportunities to hit a guy. Take them, or take off.

Patrick Marleau: Wake up, you lazy squint-eyed dweeb. Yes, yes, you can walk all over Nashville. How special. You do know that you have to win four of these series to be a champion, right? I mean, they teach you how to count to four in those Canadian public schools, don’t they? Well then take a long hard look at that ‘C’ on your sweater and get to work. Stop trying to be cute. Stop trying to be Joe Thornton. Shoot. The. Puck. You. Fool.

Christian Ehrhoff: Repeat after me: “I’m a defenseman. Defense is my primary concern. I’m a defenseman. Defense is my primary concern.” We love ya, Chris. But please, please, please will you pay attention to your primary responsibility? Oh, and while you’re at practice on Sunday, let’s see what we can do about holding a blue line, eh?

See, Ron? Get up in people’s faces. Tell them to shape up or ship out. We (the fans) want a Stanley Cup. We don’t want a “solid effort” or any such mediocrity. I’ve already tried to appeal to the team on behalf of the fans. Now I’m appealing to you: Do something to spark this team or I’ll be first in line to call for your head. You think I’m under some delusion that this crop of talented players is your doing? No, I’m pretty sure that’s Doug’s doing which makes you responsible for only one thing: Make these guys play better.

Of course now you only have one more shot, maybe. So here’s the deal: I better see you screaming at those guys. I want to see lines juggled. I want to see less “accentuate the positive” during your in-game interviews and more fire and brimstone. You’d better be hopping mad that you’re down 3-2 in this series because I am. In fact, let’s see Toskala.

Oh yeah, you heard me. Sure, Nabby’s been good since Vesa got hurt. He was phenomenal for a while there. But now you gotta shake things up. Don’t you dare get ousted from these playoffs without letting Vesa have at least one chance. Your sense of loyalty means diddly to me. You know who you ought to be loyal to? Us. The fans. I want to see you pulling out all the stops. If you have to start Nabby, fine, but he’d better be on a shutout-only leash. Anything gets by him, out comes the hook. Do not make this Nabby’s series and playoff run to lose with a phenomenal goalie like Toskala sitting on his rump.

You want the team to step it up? You step it up. Make them care. Make them fight. Make them win. I’m sick of craptacular Bay Area sports teams. You know when the last time we had a world champion was? 1994. That was thirteen years ago. Not good enough. Now’s your chance to redeem us. We aren’t just the fans with the “Team of the Eighties” or the idiots who had to cannibalize ourselves to win a baseball championship in 1989. We can be the fans who cheered the Stanley Cup champions on to glory.

But we can’t do it alone. You have to help us.

And if you won’t, we’ll start looking for someone who will.

Sincerely,
Paul Hamilton
Sharks Fan

The Spree

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Other than a few decorative items and some replacement stuff for things that were left behind or tossed due to age and function issues, the spending spree that accompanied our move to the new condo seems to be over. In the end we essentially re-furnished our place keeping only our mattress, a bookcase (which was less than a year old), the entertainment stand (also under a year) and several tables (coffee, kitchen). We also got a new computer monitor, a digital SLR camera (Nikon D70s, yet to arrive, in case you’re curious) and a replacement TiVo that has twice the disk capacity and dual tuners so it can record two different shows at the same time.

Whew.

For those who wonder how that can be, one need only understand that we did all that without really adjusting our budget at all. For once, Uncle Sam was very kind; but also we did some pretty smart shopping. The TiVo, for instance, was only $50. Ikea’s reduced prices allowed us to get as much furniture as we did without breaking the bank, that kind of thing. Put it this way: We did all that and still upped our savings account to 2.5x it’s previous balance.

I understand that there is a certain inherent problem with having that much money come back in tax returns. That essentially means that we’re letting the government earn interest on a huge sum of money all year that frankly we should be earning interest on. The problem is mostly one of overcompensation because we’ve owed for about three years prior—progressively less each year—and I guess I finally fixed that problem but I went too far and ended up shorting us some monthly cash that could go to a better cause during the year. So there’s still some adjustments to make.

But it’s far too late to do anything about last year except take advantage of the quick cash infusion and to be fair, a lot of these purchases were long overdue. I mean, the couch alone (which we also found on sale) should have probably been a 2005 purchase at least, but we lagged on it.

Anyway, when I say the end of the spree is nigh I say that because at this point aside from a small stash of money that came from a deposit return on the old apartment and maybe some cash from a recycling run and change rolling, any further purchases will have to come out of our regular budget. The deposit money is pretty much already marked for some curtains in the living room (the blinds don’t block the light completely which makes TV watching during the day a bit of a challenge) and some stools for the counter. But that is not the extent of the items that remain to be acquired so we’ll have to pick away at it over the next couple of months.

I also finally got us at least moved in and unpacked to the point where we can, by and large, live in the place without every moment involving some sort of house-wide search for a missing or obscurely packed item. I mean, the obstacle course that threatened our very health is no longer in effect so that right there is significant progress. The remaining hurdle is really the garage which has several key items still stored away and needs to be re-arranged in its own right to accommodate my gaming stuff and Nik’s car. That hurdle has its own obstacle though because we still haven’t quite determined how to store both food and dishes in the kitchen simultaneously. There is no pantry and there are fewer cupboards than the apartment had so we’re debating various other options and for now using the dishwasher as our primary storage location. It’s tough to get those last few items out of the garage and into the kitchen when you already know there is no place to put them.

But so far I’m loving the new place. It feels very inviting the way the space is used so that I don’t often feel like I’m in a “condo” or “apartment” style home, but it doesn’t drift into that marble-in-a-tin-can area of having too much void to fill. I like that Nik can sleep peacefully upstairs while I do my thing on the ground level and now that our couch is no longer a physical assault on comfort I can get a bit of mid-day rest while still leaving Nik free to hang out and not have to worry much about waking me.

On a sort of arbitrary side note, I have a weird thing about couches: I love sleeping on them. I have no idea why. When I lived in Texas with Dr. Mac as my roommate for a short time, I had my own room and my own bed but I only slept there maybe 20% of the time. I spent nearly every night (well, early morning; I also worked the grave shift there) sleeping on this gnarly couch that I believe we rescued from the dumpster. Even with the green monstrosity that had to be draped with a folded-over blanket to prevent (I’m not making this up) serious skin abrasions, I spent more than a few nights sleeping there in lieu of my far more comfortable bed. Maybe part of it is that I dislike sleeping in a bed during the day and since I’ve had a lot of times where I don’t work a normal 9-to-5 job, the couch becomes a place that feels more “normal” to sleep while the sun is out. Like I’m just taking a casual Sunday afternoon nap or something.

But back to the purchases, the one I haven’t talked all that much about is the camera. We just placed the order on Friday and I’m quite excited about it. Dr. Mac tried to talk me out of the particular model I went with but after a lot of research which included two separate trips to actual camera stores to physically handle several models I kept going back to a) Nikons, which feel far more solid than the runner-up Canons and b) the D70s, which has a lot of features I liked from the comparable Canons plus had a series of good deals on eBay that made the price more attractive and less overall compromises.

The bad part is that the D70s has actually been replaced by the D80 which makes the D70s harder to find. But the D80 is both more expensive and has some downward-adjusted features (like shutter speed) that were designed to differentiate the “pro-sumer” D80 line from the full on professional D200 line more distinctly. Another option was the D50 which is kind of a stepping stone line into digital SLRs, but those have been replaced by the D40 line which—also for differentiation purposes—have been feature-stripped somewhat from the earlier models and have the unacceptable flaw of only utilizing D40-specific lenses. Also I found the D50 to be a little harder to find in competitive price ranges or with decent kit lenses.

Granted, some manufacturers I dismissed almost out of hand: Sony, for example, who makes our point-and-shoot digital camera, was not a great option because despite the general acceptability of the camera I’ve used a ton, I don’t know that I’d re-purchase it due to some battery life problems, clunky menus and the cursed memory stick format. It’s not that I’ve had a bad experience with Sony cameras, but I felt I deserved to give someone else a chance. Even with that, I must have read a million reviews and talked to several people at length. I’m sure that in some way or another the model I went with will have a few “if only it did…” quirks, but usually stuff I research this thoroughly I end up pretty happy with when the dust settles.

No matter what else, I’m still really excited to get a chance to sit down and take some pictures with it. And to a certain extent I’m just glad to have made some decision. It helps that Nik seems pretty amped about it, too.

Anyhow, I guess things are going back to normal now so no more pretending that I’m Uncle Moneybags when we all know that ain’t true. But I guess it was fun while it lasted.

We Know Everything Was Built to Expire

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Engage random mode.

  • I’m not entirely sure what Buccigross is babbling about for much of his column, but the Mailbag section has a “Jeremy” from “Dallas” complaining about the dark jerseys being worn in NHL home games. Buccigross says Reebok’s new uniforms next year will reinstate the light home jerseys. Noo! I’d much rather see the superior dark jerseys when I get a chance to go to a game. In fact, I think all sports should have dark unis at home, light on the road.
  • Speaking of hockey, the Sharks went up 2-1 with a fitting 2-1 victory on Monday. They looked a little better. Not a lot better, but a little. I still think we should be winning these games by two or more goals and not from empty-netters, either. Detroit just ain’t that good. Buccigross has a point when he says the Sharks need to play with more fire because the talent is there, I’m just a little worried about how much they want it.
  • Last hockey notes regarding other series this round: The Ducks pulled off the comeback upset to go up 3-1; I didn’t see the comeback but the Sharks had better learn from Vancouver’s mistakes here because I see a lot of similarities between Vancouver and San Jose… the Sharks just have a little better luck. That will run out eventually. Luongo is really good but he can’t win alone and the Canucks have to figure out how to make the Ducks pay when they take penalties or there will be no reason for Chris “Cheap Shot” Pronger to not play his miserable brand of hockey all day long. Meanwhile, the Rangers tied up the series with another controversial video replay. I totally think the right call was made from the replay but I would have liked to see a better call on the ice and is it just me or did that whole sequence show that the overhead cameras above the goals need to be of much better quality? Two more frames in there or a better center-ice camera zoom and that’s a goal. It’s gotta be frustrating as heck to essentially lose a game due to technological limitations. At least the Sabres are heading back to home ice. I really want them to advance: They play hard and that ought to be rewarded.
  • Dr. Mac turned me on to Goozex, which has the dumbest name in history but is a really cool video game trading service.
  • On one hand, I felt like the time travel episode of Heroes did all the things I hate about SciFi time travel stories: Had no internal consistency, overlooked obvious paradoxes, muddled the story unnecessarily and introduced scenarios that had no logical explanation. On the other hand, the intent of the device was so compelling and—mind-bending anti-logic aside—so well executed that for once I found myself not really caring. One thing that Heroes has done better than any show I can think of is really make me trust the writers to come up with something awesome. I watched and do watch other serialized shows with a lot of apprehension that at some point they’ll drop the ball and just go off on a really dumb tangent (I fought this fear with the X-Files for six seasons before it became clear that the mythology had done exactly that; I continue to fight with Lost on this matter) forcing me to lose interest. There are three episodes of Heroes left and I have no doubt that they’ll be awesome. I’m even done questioning Niki because so far even things that are slower to develop (like Future Hiro) turn out to be really cool. </fanboy>
  • I watched The Last King of Scotland thinking it would be really good because I like Forest Whitaker as an actor and a lot of critics I tend to agree with really loved it. Whitaker’s performance was good but the movie itself was stupid. I think part of it was that I had no sympathy for the main character (who is not the Forest Whitaker character) and sort of wished he would go away. It’s hard to be repulsed by a villainous character when the protagonist is reprehensible himself: There is no contrast. Also, it gets really graphically violent at the end but is handled in a sort of schlocky, gratuitous manner. Dumb.
  • On the flip side, Nik and I went and saw Hot Fuzz, which was great. Even better than Shaun of the Dead, I thought, and I really liked Shaun. Word of warning though: Hot Fuzz is also over-the-top graphically violent (but the schlock works here because the whole movie is silly/serious like that) so don’t be surprised like Nik was.
  • I’m totally digging the new Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Most people would probably listen to it and go, “uh, what?” But I love it. Brilliantly weird.
  • We have actual cable-box-based Comcast now (versus the straight-from-the-wall boxless variety) and cable internet instead of DSL. For one thing, I know it may be anecdotal but I’ve always had much, much better speeds from cable than DSL. So it’s nice to have our broadband actually feel like broadband again. But since it’s been three years since we had a cable box, there are a couple of really cool things they have going now. One is the serial cable from the TiVo actually works now so I don’t have to use the stupid flaky IR solution which basically makes the TiVo have to try to change the channel as if it were pressing buttons on a remote control. Predictably it failed a number of times when we had to do it before, usually right before key programs like season finales were about to air. The other is Comcast’s On Demand service which I was skeptical about but I find to be very cool. I make the analogy that it’s kind of like watching someone else’s TiVo. You don’t necessarily have exactly what you want, but there is probably something in there worth your while. I just wish I didn’t have to pay $14.99 if I want to get FSN Plus. True, it doesn’t matter much now because all the NHL games are either on the main channel or nationally broadcast, but during the regular season I found it exceptionally annoying that a game was televised but I couldn’t watch it because I didn’t get the stupid channel.

A Final Story

I’ve got only two computers any longer: My trusty iBook G4 which is sadly having some display issues but still runs like a champ for the most part and a first generation Mac Mini which serves as our “household” computer and is shared by Nik and I. The Mini has all our iTunes stuff and we use it for general web surfing, email and pretty much anything that doesn’t get too geeky.

Since we purchased the Mini, it has been connected to an old 17″ Viewsonic CRT that was probably on its last legs a year before I hooked it to the Mini and has a horrible lack of brightness and a gargantuan footprint. When we moved to the new place we bought a new desk to replace the monstrosity I bought back when I had about twelve computers running at any given point in time (and another half dozen in various states of disuse or disrepair). The old desk was an official computer desk with all kinds of nooks and cubby holes for software, instruction manuals, CPU towers and so forth. It was, with the introduction of the Mini and the consolidation of the operating computers, grossly overwrought for its intended function.

So we got a nice, normal desk and put the beast in the garage to serve as a workbench. Of course the problem with the new desk was that without all the extraneous compartments we really needed a monitor that didn’t monopolize the whole thing. So I found a great deal online for a 19″ widescreen LCD monitor from Staples: $150 including shipping for a brand-name model. That was, I found, a good $25 cheaper than any other comparable deal—before tax and shipping. Sold. I got my order confirmation from Staples a few hours after I placed the order and was happy to know it would be delivered the next day so I could get it set up right away. After all, we’d been sharing my flaky-screened iBook for a week or more and it was about time to get things set up again.

The day of the delivery I used UPS’s website to track the order. It said it was scanned into the shipping center in Sacramento sometime Tuesday morning (the 24th) and would be shipped sometime that day. I got home from work around 11 in the morning and waited around for the guy to show. Sometime around four thirty I started to get concerned so I called UPS directly and asked what would happen if they didn’t get it to me by five o’clock. The operator told me their business day ended at 7:30 pm, so there was actually plenty of time left for it to arrive. I accepted that and went back to waiting.

7:30 on Tuesday came and went and eventually I got some sleep and woke up later that evening to go to work. I didn’t get a lot of sleep so I dragged through Wednesday morning’s shift and came home hoping to see a “Sorry we missed you!” note on the door. It wasn’t there, but I was too tired to care. I collapsed into bed and slept until Nik got home. Still no monitor. There wasn’t much to do about it at that point so I put it out of my mind and decided to worry about it the next day.

The next morning I woke up fairly early with a list of things to do. I started unpacking some of the millions of boxes that were still around from the move while I listened for the doorbell that would indicate the monitor had finally arrived. By one in the afternoon my unpacking was making progress, but my patience was wearing thin. I checked the UPS website for tracking again and noted with some confusion that a new entry was listed: Sometime the day before the package was scanned into the distribution center in Las Vegas, Nevada. I picked up the phone and talked to an operator who was less than helpful. She offered to send a message to the Las Vegas center and have someone there call me back within an hour. I told her that their promises to do something within a certain timeframe was in question so I didn’t want to hang up and waste another hour. Was there someone else I could talk to? The Las Vegas rep, for example.

I was told that UPS uses a messaging-based system and could not directly transfer the call to Las Vegas. I suggested they might want to consider upgrading their system beyond that of the Pony Express and she offered to let me talk to a manager. I agreed.

The manager, Amy, was like most customer service managers: Practiced in her courtesy but nothing remotely resembling sincere. She apologized and I told her I didn’t really care if she was sorry, I only cared if she could get me my monitor. She said there was nothing more she could do but if I hung in there, it would arrive the following day for sure. She also offered to reimburse the shipping fees. I sighed and thanked her for her help, but I asked for and got her direct phone number. Just in case.

When I hung up I called Staples. I knew they had done their part, but I wanted to know how much the shipping fees had cost. The nice lady at Staples told me that the cost to me for shipping was nothing: All orders for more than $50 came with complimentary next-day shipping paid for by Staples out of their UPS account. I verified that when UPS refunded the cash, it would go to Staples and not me. I was told this was correct. For her part she offered me a coupon even though her company was blameless in the whole thing, and I thanked her. She told me if I continued to have problems to call back and they would see what they could do to help.

The next day I waited somewhat less patiently until sometime before noon, than I called again. I was quickly run up the chain until I spoke to some supervisor (not Amy) who told me that they weren’t, in fact, sure what had happened or even where my package was at the moment. I asked with some confusion how they were going to get me the monitor that day if they didn’t know where it was. The supervisor then told me there was no way it would come to me Friday. The best I could do was to contact the shipper (Staples) and have them institute a “trace” which was a formal investigation into the whereabouts of a lost package. I asked what that would do for me and was told it “might find my package.” I indicated that was not acceptable.

She said she understood my frustration and I—well, I didn’t exactly lose it but any calm, understanding demeanor I might have had vanished. I told her my frustration was not to be understood, it was to be expected at that point and I demanded to know what she planned to do to make good on their blunder. She said, “Nothing.” I informed her that it hadn’t even been close to pleasure doing business with her and hung up. I had nothing more to say. If she wasn’t going to help me, then I didn’t care. I called Staples.

For their part, Staples was exemplary in the whole mess. As soon as I explained what had just happened, they offered to ship me a new monitor at no charge. When I hung up and realized after talking to Nik that it would be much smarter to have it delivered to her work instead of our home, I called back and they cheerfully updated my shipping information. The only unfortunate part was that they don’t ship on the weekends so it wouldn’t be until Monday when the replacement order got out of the warehouse.

I never heard from UPS again.

Yesterday, nine days since my “next day” package was supposed to arrive, I picked up the monitor from Nik’s office.

On the up side, the monitor is beautiful and has a tiny, insignificant footprint which makes for lots of extra room on the desk. I brought the old CRT from the apartment, just in case, and it’s sitting in the garage. When I do my next round of unpacking I’ll toss it away. Good riddance.

On the down side I feel like UPS has really got a racket going on. The problem is that my default threat of taking my business elsewhere isn’t practical with UPS because so often when you order something to be shipped to you, you don’t have the choice of how that shipment takes place. Amazon.com, for instance, will continue to use UPS whether I want to pay for UPS service or not. My alternative is to simply not take advantage of online shopping and that’s almost more of a punishment for me than it would be for UPS, not to mention the small online stores I would in turn be refusing to support.

I wonder what the correct way to handle this is? Let it go? Better Business Bureau? Buy FedEx stock? It’s annoying how callous UPS can not only have the audacity to be but can afford to be. What is their motivation for trying to make me happy? It’s not like they will realistically lose my business nor would it matter to them if they did. As far as they’re concerned they ate the cost of the shipping so their conscience is clear, but that leaves me stranded either trying to get additional restitution from a company that did no wrong (Staples) or forced to simply eat crow.

By the by, I hate crow.

So the best I can do is say any time you have a choice, I encourage you to use someone other than UPS. Trust me, it’s not worth the hassle.

Whaa; It is to Cry

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I wasn’t feeling too well when I got home from work and I had a hard time sleeping so I watched some non-Sharks playoff hockey, including most of the Buffalo/NY regulation time action. A couple of notes:

  1. The Rangers are a bunch of cheap, theatrical whiners. I hope they loose badly. Jagr plays like too many other superstars by hoping the strength of his name alone will keep him out of trouble. Fortunately the refs were having none of it and sent him to the box several times for blatant hooks that he, of course, cried like a little baby about. But it isn’t just him: The whole team embellished and acted and moaned whenever things didn’t go their way. It was sad.
  2. Then the contested goal (see some too-quick video of it here) came where Karel Rachunek was said to have executed the oft-cited “distinct kicking motion” to put the puck in the net. Now it doesn’t matter because the Rangers ended up winning in overtime but even with that being the case, a lot of coverage mentions the disallowed goal and the TV announcers and analysts were all up in arms over it. I can see it both ways (if he was stopping, why was his leading insole facing the goalie? That’s like asking for a broken ankle; but then again, if it had been the Sharks I would have said the requisite “definitive evidence” required for an overturn wasn’t there and the call on the ice was a goal), but the crying and gnashing of teeth for the Rangers was pathetic.

As for the Anaheim/Vancouver game, Vancouver could have won it, but they pulled a Sharks maneuver and failed to capitalize on many, many brilliant chances given up by the Ducks. J.S. Guiguere wasn’t all that great, but he hardly needed to be since the Canucks didn’t seem to really want it all that bad. Sometimes it looks like only Roberto Luongo is playing for the Cup up there in Vancouver, everyone else is like, just wanting a scone or something.