"what's the deal?! with? microsoft?!" written by Zobar on estrip.org

09/18/08 11:51 - 63ºF - ID#45722

what's the deal?! with? microsoft?!

I'm going to take an unpopular position: I liked Microsoft's ads. I don't even like Jerry Seinfeld, but I liked the idea of Bill Gates as a warped Dave Thomas. I liked the idea of two out-of-touch dudes trying to reconnect with America in the most awkward way possible. They weren't funny. They weren't supposed to be funny. They were weird, but I guess weird doesn't sell.

Here's an even more unpopular position: I kind of like Bill Gates. He's really chilled out since Steve Ballmer took over. He no longer sounds like some college sophomore who's just discovered Ayn Rand. Now he's just some dude you might find hanging out at a bridge tournament in grungy jeans. [True story: my brother-in-law played him at bridge, and won.]

But of course people hated the campaign so they're scrapping it for something that's clever but predictable: a bunch of people who are not John Hodgman, with not-combovers and wearing not-business suits, being not-pathetic, and holding up signs that say "I'm a PC." Lame.

- Z

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ps. Yes, I'm famous for being lazy. I think that's worse than being famous for being fat.

metalpeter writes at 07:41:19 09/23/08 - Comment #39181: Just an update they have come out with a couple "I'm a PC" ads, by the way that idea of everyone going around saying that was used in another ad and was taken (i think) from the Movie Malcolm X there is a part in it where all sorts of people go around saying "I am Malcolm X". I myself was hoping for better but it isn't bad. In on add He does say something about not being hip.

morgan writes at 04:17:25 09/23/08 - Comment #39166: I just saw the one about the shoe store not more than a week ago. It's like a mini Seinfeld about nothing that includes Bill Gates. I find it hilarious!

This is the first time I saw the one with the family, and holy crap is it long! I'm glad I stayed with it though, I cracked up when Bill Gates did the robot dance.

paul writes at 02:04:49 09/19/08 - Comment #39040: I like Bill Gates too. I named one of my favorite server's Billy after him. Not that I like microsoft or windows. Just him, as an icon. I actually prefer him 100,000,000 to 1 over Steve "I am a stuck up shit head" Jobs - whose products I prefer (minus the cut, copy, paste missing in my iphone) - oh the irony.

tinypliny writes at 09:03:27 09/18/08 - Comment #39018: I think the keyword is Famous. Who cares what your famous for. Collective memories are so fickle. Public memories don't exist. So yeah! You are famous!!! :D

PS: The second ad was slightly more funnier than the earlier one. :)

metalpeter writes at 08:22:50 09/18/08 - Comment #39010: On Tv this was two adds it ended around the Theft and said to be continued. I liked the ads because they where different but they aren't funny. I think that what they need to do is some how come up with a parody of those MAC ads but it would be tough those ads are awesome and funny all at once. Who they need to get is who ever did the beer ads that mock out other beer ads. Like when the Budweiser dog jumps off the truck to another beer truck as an example. Like maybe they could show some guy who thinks he is hip taking his computer into an apple store so he can have all his files switched to the New Mac he is going to buy and there are little things that shows he isn't as hip as he thinks he is. Then as they switch files he loses documents and it doesn't work or something along those lines, the tag line could be something about. Windows Isn't hip it just works and does what it is supposed to do. Even though you can use Windows on Mac's from what I have read most people don't.

carolinian writes at 12:18:02 09/18/08 - Comment #38994: When I first saw it, I thought it was a campaign relating to Bill Gates' charity foundation, and at any moment I expected to hear Seinfeld say something cute like "Hey Bill, what's up with that malaria thing?".

Permalink: what_s_the_deal_with_microsoft_.html
Words: 196
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

09/13/08 11:18 - 73ºF - ID#45662

swedish wheatballs

I made a meatloaf last night and it smelled like hot dogs. I don't know how something like that even happens. )-:

Natalie Dee

is funny in a way that is difficult to explain.

'dead in the eyes and coming for you specifically'

- Z

Permalink: swedish_wheatballs.html
Words: 50
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: misc

09/04/08 09:27 - 79ºF - ID#45576

potpourri

1: WANTED: Stats geek to hang out with hot babes. Inquire within.

2: Q: When did Russians start being awesome? A: Once you click this

!!!

3: The problem with me in living in the suburbs across the street from a very expensive private high school, is that I just don't have any empathy for anybody around here. A kid from the school was driving his Audi hatchback like a dickweed, and the person he cut off and/or tailgated followed him until he parked [in front of my house] and started yelling at him. Then her shirtless, shoeless husband started getting all up in the kid's grille. And as the argument got more heated, I realized I wasn't on the side of the kid or the 'adult'- I was really just hoping for mutual assured destruction, and maybe some fire. Instead, police were called and, in true Kenmore fashion, three squad cars showed up.
Moral: Don't be an asshat in front of my house, unless you have the courtesy to catch fire.

4: 'I forgot to opt out' email marketing is in some ways worse than spam. You can't mark it as spam in good conscience. I have a mailbox called Unimportant and a rule set up. The rule got so long that I had to split it in two due to a bounds error/distributed infinite loop in Gmail [good work guys]. My shit list:

5: Everybody seems to be talking about Chrome.

I like that it keeps track of your most often visited sites, but I don't think that's enough to set the world on fire.

6: Cloud computing is keen but I wish it wasn't all in beta. Google App Engine

is very tightly integrated and free, but how much can you do when you don't have write access to the filesystem and all your requests, responses, and database records need to be under 1MB? Amazon Web Services

don't care about file or transfer size, but their database isn't totally online yet. And when Yahoo gets into the game I'm sure it will be totally awesome except that nobody will realize that it exists.

- Z

Permalink: potpourri.html
Words: 371
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: misc

08/29/08 10:55 - 66ºF - ID#45495

born a ramblin man

1. In the United States, the word that precedes 'historic' is 'a,' not 'an.' 'An' precedes a vowel sound, and the 'h' is not silent. If you have thought enough about it to decide to use 'an,' you will probably also think enough about it to not pronounce it like a bad Shaw character. It ain't none of mine if you want to do that on (e:strip), but if you're someone who writes for a newspaper, you and your editor should both maybe have half a clue.

2. The last time I went grocery shopping I saw the potatoes labelled as 'pommes de terre,' and I thought that was kind of funny and evocative. Then my brain took a left-hand turn at 'noms de guerre' and ended up at 'pommes de guerre,' which sounds mischievous and awesome.

3. When I was a kid we had three pear trees and more pears than we knew what to do with. If you were on our shit list, we'd ring your doorbell and run away, leaving a grocery bag of like fifty pears on your porch. The ones that fell off the tree and rotted, we would dispose of by playing pearball ['poires de guerre?']. A soft underhand lob, an aluminum baseball bat, a spray of sticky mess. I wonder why I was always the pitcher?

4. We also had an apple tree that never produced any fruit worth eating for as long as I can remember. This summer - with my mom in San Diego and me mowing her lawn - it's apple armageddon.

...ramble on-

- Z

Permalink: born_a_ramblin_man.html
Words: 269
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: traffic

08/19/08 06:23 - 67ºF - ID#45368

yeah paul

It happens to me too. Today is the second day of football practice:

Notice the situation: has parked illegally across my driveway to avoid parking illegally next to a fire hydrant. Had furthermore left the car unattended for several minutes, which was what seriously irked me. Had enough sense to pull away when I pulled out the camera.

Earlier this morning they ticketed a station wagon for, boringly, parking in front of that self same hydrant. If I start calling these in, I wonder if the town will start paying me commission?

- Z

Permalink: yeah_paul.html
Words: 96
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: nsfw

08/17/08 02:10 - 73ºF - ID#45350

what makes her special

She sends me a photo, and some commentary.

But this is not the commentary of any Earth being:

'I don't even know how you'd process a photo to get it to look like that ... Grooviest is how the light fixture is hanging off-center.'

- Z

Permalink: what_makes_her_special.html
Words: 48
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: geeky

08/09/08 06:53 - 69ºF - ID#45290

perverser

I had started this project a while ago (e:zobar,39008) but then my hard drive crashed and other things came up. I had some free time to myself this week [go figure] and so I started again.

Here's a demo

that doesn't do anything except look pretty. Er, ugly. It's weird enough seeing it in Mac OS X; bringing it up in Windows is more like: that isn't supposed to be there.

<geeky>I've switched from Java to Flex 3; the screenshot is the AIR app, and the link is the Flash app. I've had to build my own xp/Luna skin for Flex, since Flex only comes with the Halo skin. The Luna skin can be separated out for another project - not that there's any reason for it - but it's only as complete as I need it.</geeky>

- Z

Permalink: perverser.html
Words: 155
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: misc

08/08/08 11:22 - 62ºF - ID#45275

yowza

Holy schlamoly! Woke up at 4am to the sound of a half-dozen sirens screaming down the street. Normally I would roll over and go back to sleep, except for the strong smell of smoke all up in here. Went to the window and saw a rising cloud not too far away, and I thought I heard walkie talkies. Shit man! I'm not proud, I'm a gawker. Put on some clothes and went to see what was going on.

The smoke was like a fog blowing down Kenmore Ave, which was impressive since it turns out the fire was almost a mile away. They'd blocked off the street and though the second floor was still on fire, they seemed to have it under control by the time I got there. I was right across the street but the smoke was so thick I still couldn't see the building - I only found out just now which one it was. Some residents within eyeshot of the fire said they saw crazy high flames coming out of the thing when it started.

Anyway, if this

is yours, um.

Here's the report from WIVB

- they say the building may have been struck by lightning, dang.

- Z

Permalink: yowza.html
Words: 232
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: a series of tubes

08/06/08 10:57 - 72ºF - ID#45250

f#*k%£g monkey

Adobe AIR is an impressive* new technology that the BBC has used to produce a swearing Olympics monkey.

Although they've since updated the application, the list of swear words has [of course] been archived online elsewhere

. George Carlin eat your heart out, they've got 1,400 listed here.

- Z

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I wrote the scoreboard/advertising/multimedia controller for the QCRGs using the AIR beta, and that's some dang heavy lifting. So far commercially it seems to mostly be used for the kind of application that Marketing thinks would be great but which ends up taking up way too much desktop real estate and provides too little functionality for the amount of advertising it spews for anybody to actually use it,** which is a real bummer.
Guilty as charged. But I only did*** the Mac version and I used Objective-C, which at least excuses it from this conversation. Don't bother looking for it though, it only works in Baltimore.
I will make it up to the Internet, I promise. More later, maybe.