Geek vs Life

So, Denny’s did their “free grand slam” thing today. Hey, free food, I’ll try it out…

The following is what I posted on the Seattle PI’s blog about the event:

I went to the Denny’s in Lynnwood this morning, and honestly, if I had’ve known the details (which were available nowhere on the website), I wouldn’t've bothered. The relatively short line (we probably waited about 20 minutes for my mother and I to be seated) was the only good thing.

From watching people be seated, it seemed that most of the parties were of two people. However, even with this fact, individuals were specifically told to take the “first seat you come to” at the counter, even if there were two seats together at the counter, and the individual was behind a couple.

The second problem we had, was the utter lack of communication. While yes, the website and promotional images DO show two pancakes, two eggs (over easy), two pieces of bacon, and two pieces of sausage, if you go to the menu of the website, you are told that a Grand Slam is ANY 4 of a choice of 8 or 10 options. Nowhere on the site does it specify that you are only allowed to get that specific meal, and they only would allow you to get scrambled eggs. Even opting for your eggs cooked another method resulted in you having to pay for your meal. This upset me greatly, because I don’t eat pancakes or sausage, and given my intolerance to egg whites, or eggs not cooked in a specific method, my breakfast ended up being 4 pieces of bacon (I swapped my mom’s bacon for my sausage). Thank goodness I work in food service myself, and was able to buy a bagel at my own work, or I would have had nothing but 4 pieces of bacon until I got home at 3.

The third problem we had was the service. Our server was very short with us, and, while I understand that they were busy, she did not have to snap at us when my mom asked for a menu to see what the options for the Grand Slam were. My work has been much busier than that, during the middle of lunch rush at the mall during holidays, and I would never allow one of my cashiers to act like that to a customer. If I caught them, I’d ask them to go in the back and cool down before coming back out, even if we had a line longer than theirs was. Discounting our own server, a server at another table didn’t even know that they weren’t custom cooking the eggs, which led to a very upset man, as his daughter wanted her eggs sunny-side up. They should have had a mandatory meeting for everyone who was working today to attend, where they made SURE that everyone understood exactly what the promotion detailed, and counseled them on how to keep their cool.

All in all, as I told my mother as we were leaving (we were there a total of about 40 minutes, as she ate quickly so that I wouldn’t have to look at her food, which was making me sick to my stomach), that I wouldn’t've even bothered if I had’ve known how it was. Even with the bagel, my stomach was still churning for a couple of hours (I had had a bite of my eggs, not realizing that they weren’t dry, and that there was milk in them), and I was just glad that I didn’t throw up in my restaurant.

When I was younger, we patronized that Denny’s often, it was our “family dinner out” restaurant. Then, when they became a “Denny’s Diner”, we had horrible service, and never went back. I went once with a group of coworkers after a meeting, and again with my mother, in the past few years, and the food and service were decent, but nothing to praise. After today, it’s not likely that I will return.

Got this from ICv2, via the Anime Conventions Mailing List (ACML):

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has signed on as consultant to the defense of Christopher Handley, an Iowa collector who faces up to 20 years in prison for possession of manga that he ordered from Japan. The CBLDF will add its First Amendment expertise to the case, which is being managed by the United Defense Group’s Eric Chase, and the CBLDF will also be providing monetary support towards obtaining expert witnesses.

Handley, who is 38 years old, faces penalties under the PROTECT Act for allegedly possessing manga that the government claims is obscene because the books include what the government claims are depictions of minors engaged in sex acts (no photographs are involved).

CBLDF’s Charles Brownstein finds the Handley case especially troubling.  “The government is prosecuting a private collector for the possession of art,” he said. “In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the federal government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books.”

Handley has a collection of over 1,200 volumes of manga; he’s being prosecuted for images that occur in just a handful of the volumes in his collection. Putting the case into context, Burton Joseph, CBLDF’s Legal Counsel says, “In the lengthy time in which I have represented CBLDF and its clients, I have never encountered a situation where criminal prosecution was brought against a private consumer for possession of material for personal use in his own home.  This prosecution has profound implications in limiting the First Amendment for art and artists, and comics in particular that are on the cutting edge of creativity. It misunderstands the nature of avant-garde art in its historical perspective and is a perversion of anti-obscenity laws.”

Eric Chase and his team at the United Defense Group have already scored a major First Amendment victory when the judge ruled that portions of the PROTECT act are unconstitutional, but Handley still faces charges under surviving sections of the act, which will require a jury to determine if the material in question is legally obscene and meets all three of the criteria of the Miller test for obscenity: (1) would the average person find that the material appeals to the prurient interest; (2) does the material depict, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; (3) does the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The jury will have to find that the material fits all three of the criteria in order to convict.

So basically, he’s got a few volumes of manga (maybe doujinshi, maybe not), where probably high schoolers are likely non-explicitly having sex. And he could go to prison for 20 years for it.

I’ve been pondering a few things (some of them while starving myself for 5 days due to a parasite of some sort).

Let’s try a discussion here:

-No surprise here, Casual games are geared towards a largely growing  market of middle aged women with possibly too much time on their hands. I’m not trying to say it like it’s a bad thing though. My concern is that the companies are making the games TOO CAT FRIENDLY. If I were to leave my laptop on with Bioshock running, my cat would stay the fuck away. The pretty landscapes and southing Jazz of Bejeweled 2 seems akin to catnip. Discuss.

-Last February, someone commented on how the “companies” want you to buy in to the whole “valentine’s” day crap and buy your loved ones candy. Now I am far from being a business major, but the opposite would seem to be more logical. Promote individuality, promote being single, promote it en masse. Why? Two consumers are better than one. In a couple or in a household all you need is ONE TOASTER (for example, of course). Individually, you all need one. Think about it, if you just moved in with someone, chances you had to get rid of some stuff because your partner had a better/cutter one. If the relationship ends, you’ll be forced to buy that precious little tea kettle all over again. Now I might be taking a leap here and forgetting about stuff like the housing market, but to save the national economy, we should all become hedonistic polygamists. Discuss on how it relates to everyone owning their very Xbox360.

The end for now.

I just returned home tonight, on the Fourth of July, from my local fireworks show in downtown Edmonds. I have to say, I’m not very impressed. Yes, some things are personal preference, such as the change in bands from the band they’ve had every year since I remember, but others…

How about the cops doing flagging flagging everyone DEEPER into downtown when you’re trying to leave? And ignoring the people right down the street illegally lighting off fireworks (fireworks of any kind are illegal in Edmonds. Apparently, even those little party poppers bottle thingies are). Oh, and let’s not even mention the fireworks from the show running across the ground into the crowd, and no emergency response in sight. Oh, they went out, of course, since the screams of terror didn’t last long.

I most likely won’t be returning.

Going to the backwoods in Canada, I had a dandy time catching fish, eating fish, and enjoying existence without many electronic contraptions besides a pay phone and a few local channels on some cable. On the way back while grabbing some food to munch on, I found myself thoroughly frustrated with my soda cup. It had the usual brightly colored flare and graphic creativity of any given ad, but that didn’t stop me from working hard to make the white, clean cut word “iCoke” spontaneously combust.

Granted, Apple’s very recognizable “i” has been seen everywhere. The popular mp3 players that we generalize as iPods are widely used and very popular with the general public. Apple seems to group all the related products using their trademark letter with names like iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and so on. I honestly didn’t care about it when it was just them, but when I start seeing companies like Google and Coke playing copy cat, it gets rather irritating.

If you have a Google account you should already know about the iGoogle image. When logged in and using the search engine page, the graphic is displayed right over the search bar. At first it was amusing, but when it didn’t go away after a day or two, it got a bit aggravating. There was no real connection to be made, no links, no explanation either. I’ve heard that the Google company originally wanted it to stand for “Individualized Google”(hence, iGoogle), but anyone who watches ads, wanders the internet, or deals with Apple at all period, can’t really change the first impression in their heads. Inevitably, even if on accident, it just turns into a screaming ad.

As for the iCoke, it wasn’t even on accident. Though there are no blatant “Buy Apple products!” sort of ads on the website provided (icoke.ca), the name in itself is self explanatory. Whether Apple has the “i” trademarked, or whether they’ve let it go to make popularity grow, the marketing scheme continues to be insanely popular in the mainstream. Quite unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be changing anytime soon. So until then, we go on trying not to make cups explode with our minds.