Archive for the 'Gripes' Category

Grammar for Bloggers: "Line Up" vs. "Lineup"

Published on January 15, 2008 in Gripes and Random. 0 Comments

Welcome to a snarky new series. A beautiful thing about the advent of blogging is the availability of so many sources for getting news and information. The trouble is, many of our friends in the blogosphere have some difficulty with the written language. This can be a barrier to adoption for the snobbier sections of the community, so I’m here to help. The goal is not to aggravate or annoy; I’m hoping to provide some tips that will be helpful.

Today’s example comes from Engadget: "Zealots lineup for Jobs’ keynote". The word "lineup" is always a noun; it could define a company’s range of products, or a viewing gallery of suspects at the local precinct. When used as a verb, the words "line" and "up" need to be separated.

The apostrophe at the end of "Jobs" is correct; you could get away with "Jobs’s" as well, but I agree with the poster here. We’ll probably have to get into apostrophes at some point, but not today.

Office 2007 Color Schemes / Themes

Published on December 20, 2007 in Gripes and Software. 3 Comments

In an effort to keep all us little monkeys up-to-date, we were all just upgraded to Office 2007 here at work and the first thing I noticed was the nasty default “toothpaste” color scheme. Don’t get me wrong… blue is one of my favorite colors, but that shade was just plain offensive. And so I proceeded to search for the “Themes” option to make a quick update. Unfortunately though, Office 2007 is different enough that even if my very existence had depended on it updating the color scheme, I wouldn’t have been able to locate where to make the change. Luckily for you though, I’ve now located this elusive option and I now share this information with you (it’s much easier than I was making it).

First, open any Office 2007 application (besides Outlook) and click on the nifty new “Office Orb” in the upper left-hand corner.

Second, at the bottom of the menu that appears, click on “-application name- Options” (where -application name- equals the app you happen to have open).

Third, on the default “Popular” tab of the new options window, select your color scheme from the drop down menu on the right. Please note that this option changes the color for all Office 07 apps so you can’t set each to a separate color scheme.

There you go. That’s it! You can choose from one of the follow schemes so hopefully you can find one that works with your windows theme. I’m just glad to be rid of “Zesty Cresty Blue”.

BioShock Demo Experience

Published on August 22, 2007 in Games and Gripes. 0 Comments

Well, I cranked up the BioShock demo last night. It played pretty well with my system, in spite of the fact that I didn’t bother trying to tweak and turn things off. The framerate was too low, but I wanted a feel for what a DX9 card would present. My current rig has a Core 2 Duo E6400, 2GB DDR2, and a GeForce 6800 Ultra. It’s the graphics card holding me back, but I’m hoping Rudeboy gets his rig back up so we can see what a single core will do to this thing.

Impressions? The gameplay was really pretty decent. The areas were really creepy, and it’s got style like no other game. Story seems intriguing. It’ll play on my rig, but I’ll have to turn off some of the cooler effects. I zapped guys with electricity, and fried some with fire, and shot some. Seems like lots of options for destruction.

I’d like to get a feel for how it’s running on older hardware, so if anyone’s played the demo, feel free to give a report with your specs in the comments.

Positive Gaming Press

Published on May 29, 2007 in Games, Gripes and Random. 1 Comment

Hello all. Just read a post about Adam Mapleson, the guy who took a bullet for a stranger to stop a robbery. He’s in pretty bad shape, but he should be ok, fram what the reports are saying. Props to Adam for having some guts, and our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I’d like to toss out an official Modstomp policy, pending Rudeboy’s agreement, that we’ll post any press like this that shows gamers in a good light whenever we come across it. Gamers are awesome people who do a lot of good in the world, and it’s time that everyone started noticing.

Do Australian Crickets Play PS3?

Published on March 22, 2007 in Gripes and Playstation. 2 Comments

Because a soft and soothing chirping noise seems to be the only sound coming from the Australian PS3 launch lines. At least that’s what the following picture would suggest:

I don’t deny that I probably come across as a bit of a Sony hater, but lest you think it’s due to my devotion to some other gaming console, let me enlighten you. Over the years I’ve owned a good many Sony products, from calculators to car audio. And in all those years, I’ve come to find one thing in common with all those products… they’re crap (well, I guess the calculator was ok).

Let me explain a little further…

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Death To Silhouette Dancers!!!

Published on January 31, 2007 in Gripes and Random. 1 Comment

In this day and age of almost constant web surfing we’ve become pretty used to being bombarded with stupid banner ads. But there are a few of these lame ads that seem to be far worse than others. I’m refering specifically to the freaking stupid silhouette dancers. Now I’m not a fan of the dumb animals with all 50 states plastered across their terribly contorted bodies. I also hate the stupid “tattoo” ads, but they both pale in comparison to the dancers. I have yet to figure out how any of these ads relates to what they’re advertising, but regardless of the product they might be trying to push, THEY SUCK!!!

I realize that everybody has their own pet peeves (Zarch’s happens to be stupid real estate ads with happy couples smiling and laughing in front of their new dream home), but these ads in particular just rub me the wrong way. I also realize that through the use of firewalls and firefox plugins most ads can be totally removed from the surfing experience, but in many cases I’m using computers where I have little control. Also, there are times when I actually want to see what’s being advertised on my sites so I have to leave ads enabled. I just wish I didn’t have to deal with 4 slightly out of sync and obviously gay cowboys dancing at the top of the screen while I’m trying to read my email.

While looking for a picture to help get my point across it became apparent that LowerMyBills.com is by far the most guilty party in this trend, but I also blame apple and their stupid Ipod ads. I’m pretty sure the Ipod ads came before any of these craptacular banners. I realize that much like reality tv, these ads are probably going to be around for a while. I just wish there was a way to arrange a meeting in a dark alley with the creator of this garbage. I’d also like to kick the creators of MTV’s Real World in the head as well. I blame them for ushering in this age of reality tv spewtum that we now have to deal with on a nightly basis.

Rant over.

Things that MUST GO!!!

Published on October 20, 2005 in Gripes. 0 Comments

There’s a local radio station here in Salt Lake (X96 KXRK) that compiles a list of ‘things that must go’. I’ve thought of contributing to this list quite a few times, but I’ve decided instead to start my own.

The permanent list is located in the forums HERE so please feel free to add anything you think is a ‘must go’ sort of item, action, behaviour, etc.

To start the list, here’s most of my first entry (which can be seen at the above forum link):

You see a lot of custom paint jobs on cars these days, but I gotta say, you’re not foolin me into thinking that your car is actually made of diamond plate steel and that you just drive soooo fast that the paint is starting to peel back and reveal the diamond plate beneath.

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Burnout… not just for top-fuel dragsters anymore!

Published on October 6, 2005 in Gripes. 0 Comments

Today’s topic is burnout.

Now, I’m not talking about slamming the gas pedal to the floor breifly to prep my tires for a screaming fast run down the quarter mile. Today I’m referring to the type of burnout that makes you say ‘I CAN’T FREAKIN TAKE IT ANYMORE AND I WANT SOMEONE TO JAM A LETTER OPENER THROUGH MY BRAIN STEM TO MAKE IT STOP’, or at least something similar to that.

To be fair, I don’t have it all that bad. I’ve got an ok job with a reasonable stress level. I live on 1234 Nowhere St. in the dead-center of your typical middle-class American suburb. I’ve got 2 kids, a house, 2 cars and a motorcycle and none of my stuff has been recently spread across five square miles by the wrath of mother nature. But still…

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Apple attacks the software for my new Zen Vision!

Published on September 30, 2005 in Gripes, iPods Suck, Software and Tunes. 0 Comments

Here’s hoping this is just a fluke, and not some plot by the Mother Brain at Apple to make us all wear stupid white headphones and blink in unison, but Quicktime fragged the software for my new Zen Vision. I was happily unpacking components and slipped the CD with drivers and software into my drive. To my bewilderment, it kept giving me the "This program had an error and had to close" message. Well, I followed the link to more info, and this is the page Microsoft popped up:

After I uninstalled Quicktime, the install of the Creative software went without a hitch. I’d like to believe there’s nothing to this, but in a world of white plastic and hip twenty-somethings rocking out in public to the top 40 on their iPods, nothing is certain anymore.

Anybody else have this problem? Fire an email off to me.

Talkin’ Smack

Published on July 9, 2005 in Games and Gripes. 0 Comments

So… what’s up with all the trash talk that seems to occur in every freakin chat room on the planet? Regardless of what game I happen to be playing, people are talking smack and worse. More than half the time the trash talk degrades to “what are you wearing?”.

I’m sure I’m not the first to notice this phenomena, but I first encountered it when I would log into Battle.net while playing Diablo. It didn’t matter when I logged on, there would always be somebody trying to raise hackles by telling everyone their mom said hi last night. I never figured out why. As time went on and I started spending more time online, I noticed it more and more. It occurs in chat rooms, forums, game rooms, etc. Everywhere one or more people join to discuss anything online, out comes the potty talk.

I’ve tried to figure out why this happens, but all I can figure is that the anonymity of the internet allows people to cast off the shackles of oppression that society has forced upon them. Once people log on, they’re able to let their true self out of the cage they’re trapped in when associating with ‘real’ people face to face.

Personally I find this trend a little scary. If this is the ‘true’ face of society, we’re screwed! I’m not sure if this bugs anyone else as much as it bugs me, but on behalf of everyone out in cyberspace that finds these smack talkers more than a little annoying… if you’re one of those out there talking smack in every chat room you log onto…

STOP IT!!!