Is there anything more aggravating than having your cordless keyboard become useless in the middle of the night because the batteries have drained?
Why don't they make a cordless keyboard with an optional cord?
Stupid.
...
End of $Zero Rant #5.
...
INTRODUCTION DISCLAIMER!
This is probably the longest introductory header in the history of blogging (to date). If you've already read it a few times (hee hee) you'll have to scroll down past this ridiculously long intro to read the latest posted rant and/or video (at least until I install an HTML anchor name tag to make skipping this absurdity a clickable affair)....
Anyway, that picture's me, $Zero, the creative genius producer of $Zero Rants -- and a BlahZillion other half-baked projects. The above photo was snapped sometime late last summer while I was briefly relaxing between tangents -- skeptically squinting into the optimistic future, yet again.
And with Pocket Aces, I went ALL-IN after the flop, if you must know. I was then promptly clobbered senseless by two Kings: one on the turn, and the other on the river.
But don't let the gray hairs and balding head fool 'ya. I'm only about 25 to 35-years-old (emotionally-speaking). I just happen to put a whole lot of effort into my thinkin's, on occasion. Rest-assured you'll always find the highest quality paradoxical ponderings here at $Zero Rants.
And FYI, about two hours prior to that very moment captured above, I had shaved my face completely clean. But just after I put the shaving cream back into the medicine cabinet, I sneezed...
Voila!
Five o'clock shadow instantly returns... and since, by then, my ride was beeping their impatient heads off, I ended up having to rough it to that poker party. Not that there's a strict dress code or anything.
Anyway, those exceedingly silly, and stupid, and snotty hairy exaggerations aside, Welcome to $Zero's Punching Bag.
He actually called my ALL-IN with that crap (on a rag flop), and WON?
...
As I take another look at that squinting picture of moi, I realize that it's three months later and I'm wearing that exact same shirt as I type up this intro. Well, I have a couple of those shirts, actually. They were on sale at Megamart last Spring for $9.00 a pop, so I bought two of every color.
Nothing to rant about there. Nope.
Because the financial consequences of giving my business to that Union-Busting Megacorp (instead of some struggling independents) probably won't be felt _directly_ as rant-worthy for another couple years or so.
Tune in then (assuming you can still afford internet access).
Surely, when the new four-walled big-screen holographic TVs come out, the broadband companies of the near future will be taking the shirts right off our backs -- if they can just figure out a really cheap way to feed the threads thru, wirelessly, at a distance, say, from a shirtless tanning beach in Tahiti.
Speaking of ranting, don't you just hate the way the new-fangled media (Blogs, and Megablogs) are overly sprinkled with link after link after link after link? It's all so distracting, and time-consuming.
Although, I suppose hyperlinks _can_ sometimes be handy, too, for a laugh or three.
$40 bucks?
For a one-time download of a cartoon clock?
Yikes.
Perhaps I missed something there in my quick scan of the product.
Mark my words. Those internet content providers will be yanking the shirts off our backs in just a few years.
Anyway, I don't need a virtual speeding clock, because I already have a real novelty clock just like that. It's hung on the wall above and behind my office chair and it moves exactly like the one in that youtube video. Although, mine seems to run just a tad bit faster.
It's a lot of fun to have around. For instance, while interviewing job applicants I've noticed that the constant rapid spinning of the minute hand (not to mention the ridiculously jittery spasms of the second hand) tends to make the interviewee a little uneasy in their easy chair -- especially as they stare like a deer in the headlights into my playful and improvised questions regarding their own perceptions of the efficiency of their personal working habits.
Sometimes, for effect, I'll pull out my wallet and hand a hundred dollar bill to a particularly lazy looking job applicant, inviting him or her to join me in a reality check. I ask them to watch the speeding clock and instruct them to give me back the $100 bill immediately at the point when the clock reaches the traditional "punch-in" time, say 9:00 am. And those three briskly moving timepiece hands only take a scant fifteen seconds to symbolically zip through an entire eight-hour workday...
Now, picture this. I only have about fifteen seconds to handle that $100 bill which was just handed back to me at the "punch-in" moment, only fifteen seconds until the "punch-out" time is called by the job applicant as I instructed. So while those clock hands are furiously spinning around, I swiftly and skillfully rip up the $100 bill into teensy weensy tiny little pieces right before the job applicant's eyes. Yep. And shortly after receiving it whole, they've alerted me that the five o'clock "punch-out" time has arrived. And at that very moment I startle them by TOSSING the totally shredded cash abruptly into the air as confetti -- marveling as it all slowly descends atop their job-interview haircut.
I've practiced this fun lesson a bunch of times so the interviewee never has any idea whatsoever that when they hand me back the C-Note, I've swapped it for a fake one (using sleight of hand techniques) just before ripping the supposed $100 bill to shreds. So, as the confetti's still falling around their easy chair, when I promptly ask them if they'll be needing another demonstration to fully comprehend what they've just experienced, at the same time that I'm asking if they understood the metaphor I'm also aggressively placing yet another well-worn $100 bill from my overflowing wallet into their dumbfounded hands. At that point, the look on the job applicant's face is priceless, to say the least.
I mean, think about it. They've just witnessed me tear up a hundred bucks in fifteen seconds and now I've given them yet another $100 for yet another run through.
By the third or fourth demo it becomes increasingly difficult to convince them to give me my money back when the "punch-in" time is reached. In fact, the more conservative of applicants will refuse to hand me back the cash before even the _second_ demo ever begins. I've had to phone security quite a few times to recover my funds from these reluctant students of mine.
Well, hey, I figure if I'm gonna actually PAY someone for their free time, they'd better be able to fully appreciate every single solitary wage-earning moment as they drag themselves mercilessly from that very first coffee-pouring session (shortly after they've punched-in)... to that very last pencil-sharpening/murder-plotting daydream just prior to punching-out.
Because didactic wit like this doesn't grow on trees, ya know.
So buy a fricken' t-shirt, you lousy cheapskate!
For $100 bucks you can get yourself a fresh clean new shirt for every single day of the miserable week, including Saturday and Sunday! (assuming you can handle haggling the free shipping out of the deal.) But a single shirt will cost you only $14.99! so try to justify not purchasing THAT.
Confetti, indeed.
OBLIGATORY POLL:
Was that obnoxiously long introduction really just an elaborate marketing strategy to sell you a t-shirt?...
1. Yes.
2. No.
3. I couldn't make heads or tails of it!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Stupid Designs -- MS Desktop Icons
How can a software company be so carelessly idiotic as to give you a desktop whose icon positions it cannot remember for each screen resolution that you switch between?
Or for when you have to use another monitor for some reason.
You plug your original back in and you find all of your icons have been shifted and overlapped over eachother.
It's been like this for many many years.
Has no one ever complained?
Why haven't they fixed this utterly obnoxious oversight yet?
Dumb.
Annoying.
Stupid.
...
End of $Zero Rant #4.
...
Or for when you have to use another monitor for some reason.
You plug your original back in and you find all of your icons have been shifted and overlapped over eachother.
It's been like this for many many years.
Has no one ever complained?
Why haven't they fixed this utterly obnoxious oversight yet?
Dumb.
Annoying.
Stupid.
...
End of $Zero Rant #4.
...
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Liberals Declare the Word Liberal to be Politically Incorrect, Ban Usage
UNIVERSITY THINKTANK, DC -- In an ironic turn of events, a group of intellectual dignitaries from a major Liberal University thinktank devoted to establshing politically correct behavior announced today that due to the way the word Liberal is used as a slur against Liberals, it can no longer be written or uttered in polite society.
Earlier in the week Professor Austin B. Applehead had released an official statement but it was promptly pulled from circulation because the word Liberal was used liberally throughout the press release.
Professer Applehead could not be reached for further comment due to being admitted to a mental health facility following a cognitive dissonancy-induced nervous breakdown shortly after being questioned by reporters today about the revised (heavily redacted) document which nobody could make heads or tails of due to all of the black ink bands scattered thoughout.
A few of Applehead's conservative colleagues (who were, in all fairness, allowed to be involved in drafting the original wording) attempted to explain some of the thinking that went into the official declaration. But they couldn't stop laughing long enough for any of the journalists present to make heads or tails out of _their_ presentation.
Still, the as-of-yet-not-committed-to-a-loony-bin surviving Liberal contingent insisted that since the word Liberal has been so derogatorily used against Liberals over the years that it could no longer be tolerated as an utterance from civilized people anywhere.
It took the Liberals over seven hours to communicate that single thought. This consisted of four hours of mime, several failed attempts using that Charades game thinger, and fifteen minutes of weeping in exasperation.
Finally, a janitor (who had been cleaning up the hall during the official drafting meeting and was now sweeping the press conference floors) summed it up for reporters in five seconds, and promptly left for home.
While pushing his mop into the hall he added, "I consider myself a Liberal, but I'm not insane."
...
End of $Zero Rant #3.
...
Monday, January 5, 2009
George Bush's IQ is 110, 93, 105, 129, etc.. [updated 7:00 PM EST]
Apparently, Bush's IQ fluctuates quite a bit.
And quite often, too.
Either that OR all of those web advertisers out there are testing various ad configurations to see which IQ claim gets the best sales conversions per click.
Or they're compiling valuable IQ-related data for cookie marketing firms.
I'm guessing that the Paris Hilton's IQ is 90 ad generates the highest revenue, conversion-wise.
From middle-class working women between the ages of 21 and 29 who somehow still have credit left on their credit cards.
And they're probably paying astronomical interest rates on those web purchases as well.
...
Whatever the case may be, my IQ never fluctuates at all.
Nor does my net worth.
So what does it matter what George Bush's IQ is?
It doesn't matter at all, obviously.
I'm just saying.
End of $Zero Rant #2.
...
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Welcome to $Zero's Punching Bag
Navigation Note: click here for the Bush's IQ essay.
...
Yes, Welcome to $Zero's Punching Bag!
This is a blog where a smart-assed penniless know-it-all (moi) will be critiquing life as we know it.
It's written from a perspective so unique (and honest) that you probably don't even have the guts to imagine it, let alone live it.
So brace yourself for an eye-opening, delusion-shattering, uplifting read.
(assuming you have at least enough courage to challenge yourself past some biting sarcasm).
And by all means, feel perfectly free to stick your stupid idiotic brainwashed ignorant opinionated clueless face RIGHT in _between_ all of my far-less-than-hilarious critical words AND all of the dreary pathetically pointless problem-enabling targets which those words sincerely seek to render harmless (and tattered) and, if fortunate, brutally reformed into a wonderful humility.
...
Was that ranty and punchy enough for 'ya?
C'mon, cut me some slack, Dude.
It was ONLY a welcome message, FFS.
I was just warming up.
(to the readers)
...
Anyway, if you're looking for a nice little blog where the writer has the courage and honor to accept at least some tiny bit of personal responsibility for the utter mess that his life is, well, move on, because you won't find any of that nonsense here.
This is not the time nor the place for that kind of dishonest bullshit.
Nope.
And you know it.
So, you see, I DO have a sense of humor after all.
But the joke's on you.
Still, I've grown rather weary of it always being at my expense.
...
End of $Zero Rant #1.
...
...
Yes, Welcome to $Zero's Punching Bag!
This is a blog where a smart-assed penniless know-it-all (moi) will be critiquing life as we know it.
It's written from a perspective so unique (and honest) that you probably don't even have the guts to imagine it, let alone live it.
So brace yourself for an eye-opening, delusion-shattering, uplifting read.
(assuming you have at least enough courage to challenge yourself past some biting sarcasm).
And by all means, feel perfectly free to stick your stupid idiotic brainwashed ignorant opinionated clueless face RIGHT in _between_ all of my far-less-than-hilarious critical words AND all of the dreary pathetically pointless problem-enabling targets which those words sincerely seek to render harmless (and tattered) and, if fortunate, brutally reformed into a wonderful humility.
...
Was that ranty and punchy enough for 'ya?
C'mon, cut me some slack, Dude.
It was ONLY a welcome message, FFS.
I was just warming up.
(to the readers)
...
Anyway, if you're looking for a nice little blog where the writer has the courage and honor to accept at least some tiny bit of personal responsibility for the utter mess that his life is, well, move on, because you won't find any of that nonsense here.
This is not the time nor the place for that kind of dishonest bullshit.
Nope.
And you know it.
So, you see, I DO have a sense of humor after all.
But the joke's on you.
Still, I've grown rather weary of it always being at my expense.
...
End of $Zero Rant #1.
...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
