microsoft has hard-on for getting dick off

this may not be news to everyone who keeps in the gaming news loop, as several blogs have already posted about it. i just wanted to go on the record and get my humble opinion out about the issue.

recently, it has come to the attention of the gaming world that microsoft is really cracking down on their user in very obscure ways. the most interesting of which is their irresponsible treatment of the word "gay". apparently, it o.k. for people to call each other gay and even less flattering names via xbox live communication network. i have been on at time where i have heard everything from n!gg3r, to the ever popular f@g. honestly, it is just a game of Uno people. regardless despite the fact i have reported these people for their inflamatory language, i can almost guarantee that they still have an active live account.

now in the past few weeks their is a gamer from the UK who has had his name banned from xbox live for containing the word "gay". that is right Richard Gaywood has been forced to remove his name from xbox live because of its apparently sexual nature. this is not the first time a name has been banned for conatainib the word in question, but it is the first time that the gamertag is the actual, factual name of the user. now far be it from me to point the finger of shame at microsoft and their live policies, but the whole "let's ban names that have the word gay in them" seems like a bit of antigay propaganda. a virtual "don't ask, don't tell" if you will. it is like they saying gay pride has no place on their servers. now do not misunderstand my rant, i do not personally know Richard, nor am i claiming to know his sexual preference. i am speaking about the restraining of the use of the word as it applies to this situation.

i do recall a previous instance in which a gamer has their name banned, but the reason given was completely different. this reason was that they were protecting the gamer from a verbal deluge of hateful slander. pretty much what they claimed was this; if yo put "gay" in your screenname then that implies that you are in fact gay. on top of that, not only are you enticing other gamers to accost you vocally, but you are essentially entitling to them them to do so. this incident came shortly after the posting of a video involving just such behavior on Halo 3. i am guessing they thought about this initial reasoning and revamped it to a more, "for the love of god, think of the children" excuse.

here is what i do not understand about the whole controversy. if they have language filters that will keep me from having the screenname Fucky McFuckerstien (and they do), then why is it impossible to filter out this word? when we have an answer to that, i think safely determine if this is actually an instance of discrimination or not.

so no matter what you've heard, just remember penis is the proper word.

am i the only one who does not get excited about the olympic games? i have got to be quite honest with you, i am very sick of the new Vsa campaign. you know the ones, with the "go world" slogan. i mean i think the big problem with this do people from the U.S. ever cheer for other countries. despite the fact that most of those sent to represent our country just barely got their papers for citizenship. it is almost as bad american baseball. maybe that why our soccer teams are such a joke. that and hockey have to be the least intergrated sports available.

i actually had something i wanted to blog about today, but i guess i kind of forgot what it was going to be. it was not about cars, or my pending job transfer. not about the guy at the bus thinks i want i want to talk to him, or the fact i cannot understand what in the world he is saying. he kind of reminds me of that guy from the water boy. the one that remains entirely unintelligible despite his charasmatic nature.

good news for everyone, U.S. kids have finally gotten so fat that we have finally plateaued. that is right, this is apparently front page material. great job everyone, we did not really improve, but we stopped getting progressively worse at something. in the states, that is almost as good as succeeding.

oh that's right... i went there

ok so i kind of decided to do a special blog about my bus ride home today.

today at work everything that could possibly go missing, all went missing at one time. this might not mean much to the average person, but to me it means that everybody and their mama will ask where they can find something is that they cannot find. see, my job could almost be described as a law and order spin-off, but instead of investigating homicides or sexual assualts. i pretty much spend my time looking around the store for clues to the whereabouts of things in the same way people search for their housekeys. with one exception, i have paperwork. so when something goes missing, i am often called upon to locate it. this typically an easy task, unless someone actually looking for their keys. in that case, they would be on their own.

at any rate, after dealing with "where is it?" all day, i hopped a bus and headed home. a couple of blocks into my ride i realized that i had forgotten to tell customer service about something they had me fix for them. so i whip out my cell phone and call them up. while i am on the phone, i notice the lady on front of me keeps turning to give, shall we say "looks". i had just figured it was becuase of the strange work lingo i was using. i can see how when someone uses a word like "orca" in the middle of a sentence it might sound odd.

so i finish the call, then i get ready to put my headphones back in my ears when she does a round about once more. the she says, and i shit you not, "you do know this public transportation. you can't talk on the phone like that" i am like wtf, so i kind of blow her off. she goes on "you need to stop hollering in my ear like that." so i reply with "i am sorry if you feel i was yelling in your even though i was not."

amazingly, my apology only spurns her anger, and just like that i was caught... in a n!gg@# moment. she starts talking about how it is disrepectful, this that and the other. i still disagree with what she is saying, but i then come to the conclusion that this is no win situation. so i tell her "kudos, i am going to put my headphones back in order to ignore you." she says something like i'll show you kudos. i ask her if she wanted a cookie or something, and put my headphones in.

i have to take a second to point out that when i put in my headphones to ignore someone. it is actually a clever ruse so that i can actually listen very intently to what they have to say. she keeps going on and on, at one point i actually try to remind that i am still wearing headphones and cannot hear her rant. she says i heard enough, and starts waving her finger in my face, and despite the fact that kept asking her to stop, she continued. so i responded putting my finger in her face, specifically the middle finger. she keeps going on and drops the f-bomb a few times. so i take out my earbuds, and let her know that she my undivided attention. she continues to bitch, so i call her... a bitch.

what was great, is some how she got offended. she actually stands up on the bus and threatens to kick my ass. i believe her exact words were, "i am willing to go to jail over you. i'll show you who's a bitch." i told her i already knew who was being a bitch, and that she probably spent a great deal of time in jail.

at this point the bus driver asks her to be civil. eventually, she sits back down in her sit and says what every black person who just spent the last thirty minutes cussing someone out for no apparent reason. a phrase with "Jesus" in the mix. i mean honestly, do people thinks makes up for you being a total ass? that is like when people mock someone and then says "god bless 'em", does that really make it ok in their mind. oh, to top it all off, she takes out her cell phone, and calls some to tell them "yeah i am riding the bus with some asshole right now. someone should teach him a lesson." are you serious? so just in case she was actually putting out a hit on me, i snapped a pic with my phone. unfortunately she no longer seemed interested in turning around, and begins clapping and humming what i can only guess was a hymnal. yay for public transportation!

this is a jet setter music letter from me to you

ok, aside from the mysterious holiday pay, yesterday was terrible. some jackass scheduled, without notifying me, several random counts. by the way, i do not know if i have ever used the word "counts" before. essentially, it is self-explanatory. i get a list of inventory, and i count it to make sure it is actually there. however, one of the things that helps me with this is downstocking, a task which people at my store seem to refuse doing. another extremely helpful, but not maintained, task is planograms. if you have ever worked in retail, you know what that. the idea is this, some person maps out you store, and without ever actually seeing it, tells you where you should put things. this actually works when everyone does it, but in my store they do not. several things have become apparent, with the lack of planos, people seem to know nothing about the inventory in their own departments. on top of that, they do not know what inventory even belongs in their areas. so you end up with tv mixed in with computers. yes i have found televisions in the computer department.

so back to the jackass who ruined my day. i came from a store where the things i just mentioned were very highly maintained. so much so, that employees were often very vocal about it. now i am at a store where nothing is maintained, and people still think they have the right to complain. the managers never hold the departments accountable, and my current store looks like crap on a consistent basis. at any rate, this fatass thought it would be a more productive use of my time so spend eight-hours looking for airline pillows and fannie packs, than to acutally do my job. he seemed to take great delight in it. he then later pointed out that media "isn't doing shit" when his department is notorious for having the exact same problems he was accusing them of having. now far be it from to point out the flawed logic of his arguement, but what does he know about the layout and processes of another department he has never worked in before. how can be the expert on something he does not even do in his own department. let me tell you what i have realized about him. he is a two-faced, backstabber. technically, they are both the same thing. however, i see it in my best interest to start pointing every flaw i see until he understands that maybe he should focus on fixing his own problems before he tells other people about theirs. yes, i am just that nice of a guy.

mary jane ceramics

ok let me start off by saying that i missed the bus this morning. not because i was not at the bus stop on time, but because the bus not. there seem to be some sort of paradox in which if i am outside more than five minutes before the bus arrives, the bus is late. however, if i am walking out of my apartment at five minutes the bus has gone by ten minutes. now i know it sounds like i am being bitter, but there is no amount of consistency to the bus in the morning. what makes it even worse is the fact that i live across the street from the busses final destination.
my morning routine is not super complicated. i has to be simple, i have to get up so early that it is almost mandatory that it be easy. the only variable is at what time the bus will arrive. not even, the real variable is the driver. i have seen them drive reckless, taking off from stops as fast as they are able, and usually toppling a passenger over before they make to their seats. then, they are slamming on the brakes at the last second when they reach a stop. that way, they can have twenty minutes to talk on the phone or to read the morning paper, or grab an egg mcmuffin. yes, i have been on the bus where the driver will regularly pull the bus over to grab breakfast from mcdonalds. i hate to bring up the fact that he could have done this before came in to work, because most have drive-thrus that never close.

alternatively, some drivers move the bus like they are part of a drive-by. so much so, that they do not even have to stop at the end of their route. how is this possible? i wish i could say that i have been on the bus when they were running late becuase of weather or traffic, but i cannot. needless to say, route 23 sucks.

here is something from the paper i have found interesting. the price of gas is directly related to the amount of pollution in your area. really? i mean honestly, even after they explained it, it made little to no sense. see if you can followe the logic. simply put, if you live in an area with high amounts of pullution (i am guessing they are talking about air pollution), then as a result you are required to use a more clean burning fuel. cleaner burning fuel is more expensive, therefore you gas costs more. ok, there are several areas where this explanation falls apart. anyone who lives in a metropolitan area knows that many of the people who work in that area do not necessarily live there. yet, if you look at the prices of gas in the surrounding areas, it is not consistent with this policy, and they will more-than-likely be lower. why? they drive their cars in the same city, so they are cntributing to the problem. why are they not required to meet the same standards. i mean how if the problem was ten people peeing in their own drinking water. then someone says, "ok from now on, you five can no longer pee here, becuase you are making the water too contaminated. however, the rest of you can pee whevere you want. hell, continue to pee in the drinking water if you like." is that really fixing the problem? no becuase everyone is not being forced to abide by the same standards. the pollution is still occuring. does it matter if only some of the people are doing it, the standards are not being met. you know what else, it also bothers me when you can't find the droids you're looking for. and that's what really grinds my gears.

your heart is not able, let me show you how much i care.

so there are a few things odd about the post for today. first, it is a morning post on sunday. that is unusual because i am not typically up early on sundays. the reaon i am up early today is because i am actually going in to work. technically, i was supposed to be at work already. of course, i am not even scheduled today, so if we are going by technicalities i do not even have to go in today. so why am i going at all? simple, i will be off friday (for a number of reasons), and in order to not overload my coworkers -- as well as receive my hours for the week -- i moved some of duties to today.
ok so now that one is explained, so what else is strange about today? well i am kind of walking to work. to be truthful, i am only going to walk for about an hour and then take the bus the rest of the. walking for an hour may seem kind of strange, but the bus i have to take will not even be to the stop i am headed towards until around 7:30 or so. that is about thirty-blocks. it actually become more of a leisurely stroll though. i was originally supposed to get a ride from a coworker, but i never heard back from them after i called yesterday. so either they forgot, i called the wrong number, or some third thing i have not thought of yet.
at any rate, the pick'n'save i just went, even though it says it is open 24-hours, and despite the fact that i was just inside the store itself, apparently they do not open until eight. you know far be it to complain about somebodies work policies, but if something is supposed to be open twenty-four, then they need to offer all of their services all day long. needless to say, after walking thirty blocks to their store only to be refused a purchase, i will be making a complaint. well the bus should be here shortly, and i have gone on long enough for one day. that will be all until tomorrow.