ThinkingSkull.com

First they tell me to bring in my skull collection, then they tell me not to. Fine, whatever, but since I actually have my own desk, it’s nice to have it looking like someplace familiar rather than another reminder that middle-class me works 40 hours a week for “the man.”

Since it’s no secret that I shoot my Reaper videos at home (yes, I have headstones on the wall for ambiance and other creepy things), I decided that, in the interest of giving management less ammunition, to go all science fiction:

I found a retro-looking, goose-neck, brushed-aluminum desk lap at Linens & Things (which are going out of business right now), and it reminded me of the Men in Black films, the sort of retro-tech look where everything is silvery and metallic. A couple of deeply discounted picture frames, blue party bulbs, and a few reconstructed black & white printouts of the MIB logo (the atomic symbol on the floor when Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones walk into the elevator), this was the result. I put a copy of the logo in the inset for detail.

Looks like those set dressing skills from college theater are still working, hmm?

Recently, one of the few credit card accounts I’m still paying off suddenly jumped due dates to an earlier date, causing an automatic “late” fee of $35.00. When I called, they were only too happy to remove the charge and explained that the “billing cycle” had changed from 31 days to 23 days. Everything was okay, however, because they could also change it back. The explanation was something about the due date being X number of days after the bill went out, fine, okay, great, whatever.

Then, another card did the same thing a few weeks later. Huh? Calling the second card got me the same response and another refund, this time with an explanation that all store accounts owned by “whatever card” were doing this. Again the charge was reversed without further hassle, and the due date was changed back by whatever realignment was necessary.

It has become obvious to me that, in addition to incurring $70.00 in fees because someone in a glass tower said, “Hey, let’s do everything THIS way,” they would have been happy to keep those $35.00 charges if no one had called them. My question is, was generating and keeping fees the reason behind doing this in the first place?

This scam is almost exactly like those “purchase rebate” schemes. You buy at full price but will get money back (The more you spend, the more you SAVE!!!), but if you don’t send the rebate in or miss crossing a “t” or dotting an “i,” the card company keeps the money, which is how the rebate company who designed the program is paid (by hedging their bets that people, being people, will forget or not bother). Since rebates are on their way out (suckers have caught on), is calling in once a month and asking NOT to move our billing date the only way we can expect not to incur mystery fees (which, of course, still have to be resolved with another call?)

Is anyone else enjoying this new scheme besides middle-class me?

I grew up on fast food. I can’t eat it like I once did (or even want to), but there are certain tastes that I remember enjoying, like a Bic Mac or the “crumbs” at Long John Silver’s. In fact, I’m still patiently waiting for Taco Bell’s “Baja Blast” to make it onto store shelves so I don’t feel compelled to buy a Meximelt when I’m craving a drink. I also remember eating at places that no one believes ever existed. Anyone remember Borden Burger? Burger Chef (and Jeff)? Frankenburger?

Speaking of McRestaurants, I still reluctantly have an appetite for the occasional $1 Double Cheeseburger, which makes a nice, hot, quick snack lunch when a turkey sandwich leaves you cold. Up until now, it was part of the over-publicized “Dollar Value Menu,” but now there’s a NEW $1 sandwich: the $1 McDouble, which is exactly like the Double Cheeseburger but with one less slice of cheese.

Now, you CAN still get a sandwich with both patties and two slice of cheese, but now it’ll cost you $1.19 and isn’t actually on the “Dollar Menu” anymore. That’s still a deal if you consider a regular Cheeseburger is 96 cents (Wow… a whole extra burger patty for 6 cents!) but it really doesn’t taste the same. Of course, you could always do what I do for those 2 for $2 breakfast sausage & egg biscuit sandwich deals at McD’s… bring your own slices of cheese to avoid being charged full price for a special order!

Well, why does McDonald’s put cheese on English muffins but not on their biscuit sandwiches, anyway? Isn’t it bad enough I can have a free coffee I don’t want with my breakfast or get charged an arm and leg for an orange juice? Plus, I live in Florida! Shouldn’t there be a tree out in front of the restaurant I can tap?

Uh oh… I think the souvenir cold I brought back from Thanksgiving vacation is affecting my brain. I could go for some Count Chocula, though… it turns milk chocolaty!

Like almost half of the US population, I enjoy an annual trek home for the Thanksgiving holiday. My main destination is my grandparents’ farm in central West Virginia with stops at other friends and family all around the state. Normally I drive (something I actually look forward to), but this year I’m going to do something I’ve always dreaded based on the horror stories alone: fly.

It’s not the “getting to” that’s bad, because most of those trips are staggered throughout the week depending on your job and the vacation days you have off. It’s the “coming back from” that haunts you, when almost everyone has to get home by the Monday after. And should I somehow arrive on time (or close enough) unscathed and with all the bags I left with, what terrible airborne disease spread across the nation will I bring back to share with my friends and co-workers?

Yeah, kinda bored. Could ya tell?

Part of my current job is to apply an online store’s tool set to conform to the kind of selling an owner wants for their store. Sadly, this often can create a severe case of unnecessary over-complication, because teaching a computer program that a mix-and-match sale item with four different SKUs (that must also be able to apply a series of product-specific quantity discounts to the final invoice) isn’t an easy task.

Whoever tried to explain how to do this to the store owner the first time may have figured out how to make it work, but creating a series of product discounts for each flavor prevents the individual flavors from being mixed and matched unless you create a series of conditions for each and every possibility… up to twenty-four! For example, you get a discount if you buy three items in any flavor, which means if you buy three strawberry-flavored items or buy three chocolate-flavored items that you get a discount. Unfortunately, the store program doesn’t understand that two strawberry and one chocolate is ALSO three items because it’s a product promotion and not a store-wide promotion.

The fix sounds complicated, but is actually very simple: don’t over-complicate it to begin with. If there is only one product with a choice of four flavors, you can use attribute editing to give each flavor a separate SKU, then create a series of product promotions for three, four, or full-case discounts. It’s simpler, it easier to set up, and you could add more flavors later without rebuilding the product from the ground up.

Is it smarter to think up an easier way to do something to get out of doing it the hard way? Nah. After all, laziness IS the “mother of invention.”

Barack Obama defeated John McCain in their bids for the Presidency. Do you think Obama would have been so gracious toward his opponent had he been the one making a speech after conceding to McCain?

Please do not adjust your sets. The Democrats control the horizontal and the vertical, so please return your trays to their full upright position and smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Twas the night before Election Day, and all through the nation,
People worried about housing, economics and taxation.

The voters were all dressed in theirs blues and their reds,
While visions of prosperity danced in their heads.

On televisions and radios still churned such a clatter,
From promises and double-talk that hardly still mattered.

From uneducated children arose such a riddle:
Who plays tug-of-war with an old man in the middle?

Obama and Biden versus Palin and McCain,
With poor Uncle Sam enduring the strain.

But when tomorrow is over we’ll be in the know,
(Unless Florida screws up like eight years ago).

And after this election has faded from sight,
We’ll have ’till the next to debate who was right.

The debt-free web company I work for (ye ol’ “day job”) moved into a brandy-new state-of-the-art building earlier this year. While the elder managers on the top floor were initially hesitant to give us free-reign decorating privileges, the Halloween season provided the opportunity for a pod/cubicle decorating binge. I went with a skull theme (go figure):

Updated! The rotted skull under the red-bulb skull lamp on the left is spewing a roiling mist all over that end of the desk. Then the tombstones all have skulls, a translucent resin skull to the left of the monitor, there are three smaller skull beneath it. To the right of the monitor (from left to right) is a bobble-head skeleton on top of the phone (right under the giant skull poster with green eyes), the Reaper clock over top of the 10-skull fountain, the talking candy-dispenser skull, the voice-changing talking skull, a cone-head skull with a cone of mini-skulls, and finally a string of 10 skulls that blink to the “Halloween” theme.

Little does management know I have no intention to take this down after Friday… tee hee!

I came home Saturday afternoon from the store to find a doorknob hanger informing me that I, too, could “Vote Early for (Candidate)!” Presumptuous, yes, but not as much as the bit on the bottom that said, “Text ‘Pledge’ to XXXXX for Your Support of (Candidate).”

Ahem.

I would like to take this time to apologize to every political campaign soliciting my “pledge of support.” I currently only have one pledge in place, allegiance to the flag of the United States of America (and to the republic for which is stands; one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.) I’ve repeated this at least three times in front of a commanding officer, twice in uniform.

So, ever notice how the Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t say “with freebies and handouts for all?” Discuss.

I recently attended Universal Studios 2008 edition of Halloween Horror Nights, and the one show that I try to make a point to see each year is “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure,” a special holiday edition of their normal show. There’s still something entertaining about two time-traveling idiots who make fun of things they have no chance of understanding while looking for excuses to party, dance, and riff on air guitars.

But more to the point, this year’s election-inspired intro to the show featured candidates McCain and Obama, and as the two ripped on one another and spoofed themselves, the opportunity for an impromptu poll presented itself as the two actors tried to get cheers for themselves from the packed audience. No issues, no platforms, nothing but what clearly looked like a short old man seemingly unable to stand up straight and a lithe black man with a commanding silhouette towering over him. The cheers overwhelmingly went to the Obama look-alike, while McCain’s doppelganger drew more boos than any actual support.

With an audience that could be assumed to be half Floridian, half tourist with more than a chunk being unable to actually vote (under-aged or non-American), it certainly felt as if this was really what the campaign has come down to: appearances. With both campaigns successfully seeding distrust into the messages of the other and diluting the facts with enough questionable fiction to make an honest intellectual assessment of either man’s credentials, experience, or intent nearly impossible, all that seems to remain is the observable. As was previously indicated to Tommy Lee Jones by Will Smith in Men in Black II, has it really all come down to “old and busted” vs. “new hotness?”

I heard that Mr. Obama has essentially outlined his goals as “redistribution of wealth.” If memory serves me right (with apologies to “Iron Chef”), Obama believes all the money America needs is right here and we just have to get it into the hands of the people who don’t have as much (read: raise taxes, but only on “rich people.”) Then everything will be fine.

Put another way, Obama is buying votes from the masses with a promise: I’ll take money from successful people and give it to people like YOU who are not as successful. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor? The question: who’s rich and who’s poor? The answer: only your government knows for sure!

Ask yourself this question: Do you want to be rich? If the idea of writing a great novel, inventing a new product, or starting an new business with the intent of being successful (aka “well to do”) sounds good, do you want someone to take away half or more of your profits and give them to someone who didn’t think up your idea or didn’t work hard writing your book? Overtaxing “the rich” makes people reconsider where they’d like to keep their wealth or live to spend it. There are plenty of other countries in the world that “rich people” would be invited to live.

But that’s the so-called “filthy rich,” isn’t it? Small business doesn’t need to worry, right? Okay, what is a “small business?” If you work for a company that’s big enough to offer health benefits, chances are it makes more than $250,000 a year, which is Mr. Obama’s cutoff for where the secret wealth of America is hidden and must be obtained to share with everyone. So, he’ll take the money from them (kiss your raises and holiday bonuses goodbye), divide it up and give it to you… unless the company goes out of business, in which case you’ll have get to another job and start at the bottom again. Or you could collect unemployment… you know, from the government.

Here’s a question I want someone to ask Mr. Obama: under his administration, what is considered “my fair share?” He should be able to define or outline that, right? Wine or beer? Blu-ray or DVD? Lexus or Honda? House or apartment? Paper or plastic? We ALL should get our fair and equal share, right? And if my neighbor gets something new, when do I get one, too?

Really it comes down to this. If you have “enough” money and choose to give it away to someone YOU feel could use it, that’s fine; it’s YOUR money. If the government puts a gun to your head and tells you to give your money to whomever THEY choose, that’s something else (thank you, Penn Jillette). Whether you call it a tax credit or not, welfare (yep, that’s what it used to be called) has never been more than a temporary solution at best.

Today’s Lesson: “Teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. Give a man a fish, and Barack Obama probably took it away from a successful fisherman.”

It never ceases to amaze me how many people I know don’t get this. How does the economy work?

• You put money in the bank.
• The bank loans (invests) your money to others (debtors) by charging interest.
• When payments and interests are paid, everyone makes money (banks more than you).
• If the debtors fail to make these payments, the bank loses money but still owes you, making up the difference with assets gained from other investments.

Simple, right? So what’s happening now?

• Too many debtors can’t pay back loans (a default).
• The bank may not have enough assets (at the moment) to cover everyone who has money in the bank.
• People withdraw money because they fear the bank won’t be able to cover their assets.
• Because more money is being taken out than is available to cover the debt, the bank fails and closes, causing the very situation to occur that everyone was afraid would happen.

So what is this credit crunch? Why are people afraid businesses are going to fail?

• Both people and banks are afraid to invest money to give for credit and loans.
• If the banks have no new money coming in, there’s no money to loan for purchases.
• If consumers can’t borrow money to make a purchase, they may not buy anything at all.
• If no one is borrowing or buying, there’s no way for the banks to make money or business to keep selling.

Which brings me to the point. No one wants to be the last person standing without a chair (read: “golden parachute”) when the music stops (everything closes down). So how exactly was a $700 billion… I’m sorry, $850 billion “stimulus package” suppose to fix anything?

• If banks and investors believe more money is coming in, maybe they’ll stop taking their money out.

Nope, it didn’t happen. All anyone can do is let it fail and have everyone hold onto everything they’ve already got really tight until the smoke clears, kind of like a economic hurricane. The ones with assets and cash (read: liquidity) to re-invest in what ever is left and can buy a lot of tangible stuff for really cheap prices. Then what happens next?

• It starts all over again!

And I’m seriously leaning toward the McCain-Palin ticket. It really isn’t hard to see why, and I’m sure anyone paying attention to this bit o’ blogging who is pro-Obama will disagree, but this is pretty much what this election comes down to: Capitalism vs. Socialism.

Forget that George W. Bush off-teleprompter comes off only slightly ahead of Dan Quayle. The entire housing crisis / credit crisis / global economic meltdown really comes down to one idea: there are elected officials who believe that isn’t fair that some people get to be rich and other are stuck being poor. Worse yet, this is the platform that got them elected; vote for me and I’ll change whatever it takes to get you more, and you won’t have to lift a dimpled chad to do it.

This, by definition, is socialism: “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.” In simpler terms, everyone gets their fair share, the same share, and the government will tell you what that share is. Additionally, in Marxist theory, it is also “the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.” Again, in simpler terms, at the rate things are going, what we know as the “American way of life” that allows you to strive for more and “get ahead” may, by law, be prevented so that everyone else can catch up.

You’ve heard of this happening in schools already. Teaching test-taking to meet standards instead of learning how to learn? Those who can move ahead have to stay behind because it isn’t fair to “the rest.” Where is it written that everyone deserves to have as much as everyone else? Put another way, who decides what enough is, or even what a “fair share” should be?

Over the last twelve years, lawmakers required banks to create the “subprime” (read: less than prime) market that enabled families and individuals who couldn’t previously qualify to own homes to make such a purchase. In doing so, it caused housing prices to rise disproportionately because anyone could get a home, inflating the market value and creating “securities” that weren’t backed by anything real. Because of this (and the reason it was a bad idea to begin with), prices rose, income didn’t, those new home owners couldn’t afford their payments because they were strapped to begin with, and no one was left to buy new homes. Values fell and banks started collapsing because the money to repay loans stopped coming in: worthless property and defaulted loans don’t pay the bills.

Barack Obama and his entire platform of “change” is a great idea, mostly because he and politicians like him were instrumental in causing the current problem; a “change” away from this could only help. His idea of raising more money from new taxes (read: that no one can afford to pay) to give money more away to those in need (but that has no actual value) isn’t a good idea. On the other hand, John McCain warned people years ago that the government-run Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac programs that went belly up could possibly cause the very problem that America is facing says now, a fact that tells me that he a much better idea of what is going on (and hopefully a decent chance to fix it).

Here’s my plan for the next four years: tighten my belt, pay off my debts, look for capitalistic opportunities, and hope my vote for McCain can keep me out of standing in line for an Obama-endorsed, government-rationed “fair share.”

Okay, before you start asking questions about what console they’re for, I’m talking about a tabletop role-playing game. Celebrating its one-year release, here’s the skinny.

October 7, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Get Your Roleplay Free

Talisman Studios is celebrating the anniversary of Suzerain, our Origins Award Nominee RPG. And we’re celebrating in style, with a couple of great bits of news for roleplay fans everywhere:

Suzerain is now free from our online shop! That’s $0.00 for the Suzerain rule book. The economy’s getting tougher and none of us has much money to play with, but from now on you won’t need any money to play with Suzerain. Enjoy the game at www.suzerain.info by clicking on the ‘Treasure’ tab at the top of the page and browsing through all our free goodies.

We’re also launching a new web application on our site, specifically for Suzerain. Click on the ‘Vault’ tab to see our new feat database, fully searchable. Suzerain characters are all about their feats, and this is a great way to have a browse through all the options, helping you build your favorite characters. In fact, we’re even developing an update to the vault that allows you to create characters right on the web site at any power level, downloading them as PDFs for your game.

And that’ll be free too.

Happy birthday to Suzerain, and to all the fans of roleplaying. Drop us a ‘hello’ in the forums when you come for your free goodies!

If you think Christmas stuff gets started early, you probably missed the fact that Garden Ridge had their Halloween super-center up in their stores on August 1st… that’s right, two months ago. Since then, Walmart, Target, and seasonal chain stores (like the Spencer Gifts-owned Spirit Halloween franchise) have put their new merchandise out. If you’re looking for stuff that’s less painted Styrofoam and more upscale, try your chain hobby stores.

One thing I must say for all this stuff is that it’s going away from stupid-looking Hillary Clinton masks and back to scary things like quivering corpses and headless brides. Yes, Halloween is swinging back toward the scary side and not just dressing up like your favorite football star (which those guys do every Sunday anyway). Plus, there’s the scary theme park night likes Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.

I love October… don’t you?

The twisted individuals who run the web comic Least I Could Do periodically run “finish the sentence” contests for fabulous prizes (or just plain fun). In either case, I thought I’d share my entry here while calling attention to idea itself.

“The Hadron Collider caused…” the polar ice caps to refreeze, global temperatures to stabilize, and hurricanes to become less powerful. No, wait, that’s what happens when you play Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” in reverse… sorry, I was confused by the question.

Think you can do better? Prove it.

In addition to all the rumors about CD Tray cupholders, mouse footpedals (look at the old Singer sewing machines), and people looking for reverse buttons to “back up their hard drives,” I’m always amazed at what an uninformed, average person makes from what seems like foolproof instructions. Case in point:

Customer: “What is the Hotmail code to link my site?”
Consultant: “I’ve never heard of that.”
Customer: “All these sites ask for that.”
Consultant: (thinking) “Um… spell Hotmail for me?”
Customer: “H… T… M… L. That’s Hotmail code, right?”

Contrary to what Microsoft may think, “HyperText Markup Language” or HTML (the code that websites are generally written in) has nothing to do with their free email service (at Hotmail dot com). Best laugh I’ve had since watching squirrels jamming out to rock and roll on my birthday e-card!

Okay, a while back some friends in the table-top gaming world were playing around with some futuristic science fiction concepts, specifically around the future of space travel and even colonization. As a “futurist concept,” one of the things I’ve always played around with was the idea of an electrical thruster based on light pulses, or a “light pulse thruster.”

The Newtonian problem with that you can’t propel something without propellant, like rocket fuel or even explosives. There have, however, been successful tests in creating materials that can move energy through it from one side to another, like those combination hot-or-cold coolers you plug into the wall. It merely moves heat (energy) through a plate either toward the inside (making the inside hot) or to the outside (making the inside cool). If this can move heat/energy, the idea is focusing that energy into some type of thrust.

So far, no one has figured out a way to convert electrical energy directly into thrust without using up a consumable fuel, creating the limitation of no fuel, no go. This brings us to the “Em-drive,” a Chinese concept that is essentially a power source hooked up to a nozzle that will, theoretically, create thrust. Most physicists say it cannot work based on everything I just said above (and a few more technical reasons, too), but if it DOES work, it would revolutionized the space industry and everything from manned space flight to interplanetary travel.

Crap. I could have made a fortune… if it works!

Is this it? My official license to have a midlife crisis? I don’t FEEL tardy…!

What no one tells you when you’re 10 or 20 is that, as you get older, your brain still thinks it can do things your body is telling you not to. Fortunately, as a creative man-child Libra, I’ve never really listened to the whole “act your age” bit. With all the preservatives the media tells me I’ve consumed over the years, shouldn’t I expect to live forever?

I don’t worry that some of the music and media I enjoy is made by talented people half my age, kids young enough to have possibly been, in a parallel world, my own adult children. I will say that, with the current state of technology where it is, it’s a wonderful time to be creative and be seen creatively. At the same time, I also grieve that there are entire generations being left behind and even stricken lonely because they either refuse to accept or cannot embrace modern communication, whether it be cell phones, texting, or the Internet. Never before on this planet in recorded history has such a wealth of information, opinion, and ideas been readily available, and I’m happy to be employed in a sector which keeps me informed and on top of much of the latest innovation that’s moving it all forward.

Yes, I’m older, but I don’t see myself as old; that’s for younger people to do. It’s easy to look back and think, “If I knew when I was 20 what I know now… wow.” Unfortunately, you have to really live through it to get the benefit of that experience. Those up-and-comers won’t understand this until they’re my age (if they ever realize it all), and that’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

And to everyone on the road up ahead of me, looking back and laughing now that I’m at the top of the hill, why didn’t any of you tell me there’s ANOTHER hill up ahead?! I hate you all… happy 40th birthday to me!

I have just updated a mirror site attached to this domain called Darker Anthology. While I drop ideas here and comment on film via MovieCrypt.com, I’ve decided to take up the mantle of fleshing out some of these twisted ideas I’ve been building up now for the last twenty years.

From traveling the world in the US Navy to being married and divorced, it’s been an interesting few years, and while my articulation putting words to paper has improved, I’ve suddenly felt the need to start sharing some of this stuff and see what happens. I’ve started with reposting a few words from this site, but look for the new stuff to start trickling in very soon and with more frequency.

I’ll only repeat this about a dozen times: it’s gonna be dark.