Guns

Here's my gripe about firearms.

What do people use firearms for? And I mean actually use them for. Hunting. Practice shooting. Killing people in churches, schools, and small towns. Oh yeah, and occasionally shooting and killing someone that's trying to hurt or kill someone else.

Call me biased. Call the media biased. Sadly, I see lots of law abiding and legal gun owners who are very zealous about their guns, and very steadfast, willing or even eager to use them in defense of their lives or property, and I see lots and lots of gun crime. Just to go ahead and nip this, saying "See! This one dude used his gun to shoot and kill a VERY BAD PERSON who was trying to use a firearm illegally!" does not work for me. Its still gun violence. It does not solve anything. It is an isolated case of someone meeting violence with violence, and taking one bad guy off of the street. Forgive me if I'm not overwhelmed with joy and amazement.

I started to write that my beef is not with gun owners. But I suppose it is. I just don't believe that guns are effective at solving anything. Killing people, absolutely. But not at solving problems. Gun owners say that their guns are for their own protection, yet in the US, we see gun violence on a daily basis. And 99 times out of 100, its bad guys killing bad guys, or bad guys killing innocent people. Legitimate gun owners aren't even in the equation. So I ask you: What's the use? Until we either arm everyone in the country, and make absolutely sure that they're using their firearms responsibly, or we take guns off the street (yeah, I'll say it, make them illegal in the US. Flame me.), we will continue to see gun violence.

/rant

(For my gun loving buddies, this is not me being passive aggressive toward you, just me ranting.)

Picasa Debacle

omfg.

So I'm not a violent person, but this time when I say that I want to Punch Someone In The Face, I'm really serious. And this time, its Picasa.

First- I love Picasa. I use it for my offline photo database, because it rocks. I've used it for awhile for uploading some photos to picasaweb. And recently I've used it for my 365 project, to upload pics to picasaweb, and then linking them from my blog.

This morning I woke up, loaded up picasa, and it started to index my photos, as though I was introducing all of these photos to picasa for the first time. I thought it was kindof weird, but I was not crazy concerned, until I noticed that it only had 4 entries for 365. I looked a little harder, and sure enough, it only shows 4 photos in my 365 album in picasa. Odd. So I check the online picasaweb album, where all of my 365 pics are linked from, and OH HEY! only 4 photos! Which means that of course all of the photos on my blog are now broken. So, frantically, I begin trying to re-sync my web album, and I notice that while I'm doing so, its intermittently fixing my broken photos links. Some are magically returning, while others remain broken. So, I spent an hour and a half this morning uploading photos to Flickr and editing/fixing my posts. Grr!

For 'Well it could have been worse' perspective: I'm glad it did this in January, instead of waiting to ambush me months later. Fixing ~20 posts and photos is far more simple than fixing ~100 or so.

/angry rant

Product Placement.

Yes, I'm bitching again. Maybe I need to add "Cynical" or "Bitchfest" to my blog title.

Moving right along.

I hate product placement in visual media.

It would be more fair to say that I fucking hate being advertised to, but visual media- TV and movies - take the cake.

Yes, yes, I accept that advertising is a somewhat necessary evil, and that being exposed to it is a part of living in modern society and being connected to the internet and watching tv and movies. However. I fucking hate it. I do not "accept it". I accept that it is there, and I reserve the right to be completely fucking retarded about it. I. Do. Not. Want. Your. New. Phone. Or your car. Or your hamburger (okay, I do like hamburgers alot), or your what-fucking-ever.

I'm very annoyed at going to a movie, and sitting through 15 minutes of fucking cell phone commercials. Okay - fine - I'm not 15. But fuck you, I still do not want to sit through your cell phone commercials. I already paid you for a seat in your theater, please show me the movie.


Thank you.



Why are there 2000 coke cans and a bunch of pringles cans and... oh, look, a cell phone company. What movie is this again? For fuck's sake.


I'm highly annoyed by product placement. Yes, I know - they have to make money. Yes, I know - I fast forward through commercials, or even change the fucking channel, just so that I don't have to watch the fucking moronic adverts in them. None of this changes the fact that I don't want you to halt the action in your movie, and turn to your co-star, and say "Boy wow! This sure a fantastic Coca Cola! I love these things and am sure to have one every day! Hey, what time is it? Let me check on my casio brand watch! I'll give you a call later on my new blackberry curve cell phone!" *wink!" Fuck you greedy hollywood assholes, and my fellow consumers, who drive this fucking thing.



So yes, I'm unreasonably angry.










But I swear, I did like the Hulk movie.