Epic Day.

Today has been one for the history books...though I should specify the above is contingent on some starving non-fiction author getting it into his head to write the complete history of the most boring pointless f***ing day since the dawn of time.

New Hit TV Series Idea

Billion-dollar show idea:

"BREAKING GOOD."

In this highly-fictional series, you will bear witness to my slow, steady upward spiral as I quit drinking, start voting, learn what the fuck things like "Lent" and "taxes" are, and go completely cold turkey on random acts of chaos, such as covering the Internet with positive reviews for known scam artists and cheaply-made products.  Tune in here first, sheep.

Moderation in All Things

Folks always presume they know what the Romans had in mind when they coined the whole "moderation in all things" concept. And it's such profound reasoning, too...I'm sure the people known centuries later for vomiting in order to make room for more food were all over the concept of moderation.

No, I think rather than using the expression as a means to make those of us with vice(s) feel guilty about them, the Romans take on it had much more to do with the "all things" side of the equation rather than the conservative and no-fun "moderation" side. It's not "MODERATION...in all things." It's "Moderation...in ALL THINGS."

The more likely explanation is that we were being given permission to engage in every possible form of human activity. Russian roulette for ketamine? Hell yeah, but just a round or two! Cigarettes? You bet...let's keep it moderate and get ultra lights, though. Needle drugs? F*** yeah, let me tie off right now. MDMA mascara? Well...I don't normally wear mascara but I'll try anything once. Self-applied tracheotomy? Just a couple holes and I'd like to be able to cover them with a collar.

So there you go, pals - next time someone shoves that misguided, holier-than-thou nonsense in your face you are now equipped to win the ensuing argument by a landslide that'll be visible from outer space. Also I think that last sentence rhymed.

Potential Widespread Performance-Enhancing Drug Use in 2013 Douche Bag Olympics

Anyone interested in seriously competing in this year’s Douche Bag Olympics had better seriously step up their training regiment. I just bumped into a couple serious Jedi F***ing Masters up at Chipotle that have me pondering the potential existence of a drug which enhances people's douchiness.

There were two of them. The first ordered a burrito bowl, the whole while explaining that she also wanted some (free) warmed tortillas…so she could roll her own burrito out of burrito bowl ingredients. I rolled my eyes back so far at this moment that I was actually able to see behind me: I noted the entire line (out the door by this point) was collectively either rolling their eyes or I guess maybe having a seizure.

Here’s where you will no doubt realize these two d-bags were not horsing around:

After wrapping & rolling the tortillas, Chipotle Girl lifted D-bag #1’s empty burrito bowl and asked what kind of rice she’d like. White rice, the response. Not bad, yeah? C-girl dumps a generous helping of rice into the bowl. Next up? What kind of beans would you like, D-bag #1?

“Oh…all of them. But first can you put some brown rice into a separate container for me?”

This really threw me. People do weird shit at Chipotle all the time; ordering both rice variations is something I’ve never seen. And…keeping them separate? I kinda wanted to look at the idiot in line behind me to see if he was as perplexed as I was…and then I remembered: this town is full of idiots. They’re perpetually perplexed. So of course he's going to look that way. 

Now, wait a f***ing minute and back the f*** up for a minute now that we’re done talking about the rice (we basically are…C-girl dumped a spoonful of rice into a plastic container and lidded it) – D-bag #1 ordered all the beans??

Yup. She sure did. And once C-girl moved in with the spoon to dish up some beans – can you guess what’s going to happen? Because I shamefully didn’t – D-bag #1 stopped her: “Oh, can you keep the beans all in separate containers, too?”

At this point, the line was probably out to the street. I couldn’t help it; I had to turn and look at the idiot behind me. It was one of those Mexican Standoff moments; we exchanged identical glances: “Look. I don’t like you. You don’t like me. Any other set of circumstances we’d be at each other’s throats. …but can you believe this b*tch???”

So let’s recap: we have a burrito bowl with white rice in it. We’ve got some heated tortillas wrapped up in foil. And now, we’re up to three tubs full of different kinds of rice and beans. At this point, C-girl no doubt notices the line is approaching the On the Border two blocks away and decides to try to move this along. “Meat?”

Oh, no. No, no, no: shame on you, C-girl – you skipped the fajita veggies! What a bitch. Have no fear: D-bag #1 pointed it out while simultaneously asking for (you’re getting the rhythm of this now!) … a separate container for them.

Now, in the interests in spending less time on this post than I spent in the eternal f***ing line at Chipotle today, I’ve been omitting the conversation between D-bag #1 and D-bag #2 that commenced prior to entering the facility. In the same way that a writer will allude to the proverbial gun on the mantle during Act I such that he can easily bring said gun back with minimal effort for Act III, it becomes worth mentioning at this point that – this entire time – D-bag #2 was nodding her head like a fool while D-bag #1 provided at least a thousand different reasons why ordering her food this way just made sense. D-bag #2 just kept nodding. I should have known.

Anyways – where were we? Oh right – one bowl, four tubs now, and a roll of tortillas. Well, next up was meat, and D-bag #1 defied my increasingly-negative expectations at this point by only asking for one kind of meat – chicken. Two separate tubs were filled with it, sure, but hey – she could have asked for one tub of each meat option.

So all my Chipotle homies know what’s up next – condiments. And all you aspiring D-bags out there probably know what’s coming next, too, so I’ll be brief. Of the Chipotle condiment bar – which consists of at least three types of salsa, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and lettuce – not a single item was spared from the gullet of D-bag #1. I quit counting at this point. From the condiment bar alone this lady’s haul increased by at least seven more tubs.

Finally I could – if nothing else – see relief in the eyes of C-girl as she slid the D-bag’s meal over to the cashier. The look in C-girl’s eyes when she shot a quick glance upwards let me know without having to turn around that by this point the line had probably snaked past the On the Border a long time ago and was likely approaching the actual border. Luckily, the end was in sight.

Or was it?

At this point I will provide a Kaiser Soze-esque montage of one-liners from D-bag#1’s mouth as – like I mentioned above – she used her time in line to educate D-bag #2 on the many benefits of ordering Chipotle in such a manner as to make yourself a pariah:

“It’s just smarter this way.”
“You just get more control this way, you know?”
“Yeah I like to roll my own burritos this way.”
“Seems better for you.”

You know what happens next:

C-girl: “What can I get for you?”

D-bag #2: “Yeah…I’ll have...exactly what she ordered.”

Emotional People = Useless

Emotional people struggle to understand why I want nothing to do with them, particularly in the workplace. Let me see f I can share my reasoning:

Question: When a person's emotions are running high, what's the first thing that goes out the window?

Answer: the ability to think rationally.

Question: What's that even mean? What's the opposite of rational? 

Answer: irrational.

Question: what's another word for irrational, just in case the reader is unfamiliar with the word?

Answer: insane.

There you have it, folks: that's my reasoning. The older I get, the less time and resources I am willing to devote to people who are known for chronic lapses into temporary insanity. Try not to cry too hard about it, pussies.

Highway Memorials

If someone who has that whole "game show host" vibe going for him (or her) ever approaches you while you're standing along a stretch of freeway and says:

"Name one person who completely forgot his or her training in this exact location!"

...I would highly suggest you look up and down the sides of the freeway to see if you can find a sign dedicating that particular stretch of freeway to a specific Highway Patrol officer.  If so, odds are definitely in favor of that officer being your ticket to a winning answer.

Famous Sayings, Deciphered.

"Tomorrow's another day," = "Man, you really blew it."

Regarding Gremolata

I'm not particularly fond of gremolata, yet whenever it is offered or served I always partake.  It's important to me that people know I'm classier than smooth balls.

Album Review (Five Words or Less) - THE WRONG SIDE OF HEAVEN & THE RIGHTEOUS SIDE OF HELL, VOLUME 1

 

Verdict: A GOOD BAND BITES IT.

At one time in my like I had a friend or acquaintance – can’t recall, doesn’t matter – who worked for a used record store. In addition to discussing individual artists/albums/singles/what-have-you, we used to talk about the market as a whole in those days. One conversation that stuck with me in the decades that followed involved how the company’s policy on buying used music back from the public varied depending on genre.

For example: this outfit was always in the market for classic rock. Modern country music was also something this store was into.  Movie soundtracks, useless hunks of shit that they are, were bought.  What about hip-hop? Ahhh, that’s where the interesting point came to light.

This store would pay top dollar for used hip-hop…but only if it was less than six months old. After six months, the store wouldn’t even touch it. Why? “No one buys it. It’s old. Shit just takes up space.”

“It’s old.” Music that didn’t exist six months ago was suddenly “old” and without value? Remember – hip-hop was by no means on the ropes during the 90s. Hip-hop was some of the top-selling shit back then. This was the moment in time – some random point during the mid-1990s – where the idea of disposable music began bouncing around in my head. Music manufactured to appeal to the here-&-now no matter the cost, even longevity.

Listening to the new Five Finger Death Punch album – Wrong Side of Heaven, Righteous Side of Hell (pt1) – the above conversation popped into my head for the first time in years. Unfortunately, this band’s material has been on the wrong side of improving since they peaked with War Is the Answer, and this record is yet another step in the wrong direction. But what a step! Much like their last album – American Capitalist – production takes precedence over musicianship and the songs themselves rarely if ever stray from the simplest, most minimal structure possible. While certainly no Dark Side of the Moon, at least there are some interesting moments on Capitalist that will, to this day, occasionally prompt me to toss it on the stereo and check it out. This?

I am almost entranced by the sheer void of anything remotely resembling depth or value here. Musically and structurally we’re further down in the dead zone than we were for Capitalist. Lyrically? Here’s a bullet point summary of our lyrics:

I don’t care what you think about me.
I don’t give a f*** about you.
You can’t abuse and/or take advantage of me.
You can’t tell me what to do.
If you have something to say, you should say it to my face.
You can’t stop me, and I’m never going to stop on my own.

It’s one thing to spout the occasional cliché in your lyrics…but when your entire lyric sheet appears to have been composed solely of lines observed from guests of the Steve Wilkos Show just prior to punches being thrown, perhaps it’s time to examine whether you’re truly proud of what you’re putting out? This, of course, assumes you’re interested in creating art over money, which I hope is the case, because if it’s not, you’re idiots: in 2013, the rock album is certainly not where a rational person turns as a viable means of making cash hand over fist. Lord knows you bastards make sh*t off album sales these days, so…why not hold back an album or two? As a fan, I’d certainly rather have three good FFDP albums than six mediocre ones.  

Oh well.  Too bad; I really like these guys.  I'll continue to hold out hope of a career turnaround which will most likely, if I have learned anything from the past, end in disappointment.

PS whenever a dude refers to “God” as a “she” he’s trying to bang a vegan. Just another helpful FYI.

Random Realization

Is it weird that an iPhone user who's publicly disgusted with the Gaiden franchise writes under the pseudonym "Droid Hayabusa?" Hey - I give a fuck.

Comfort Zones

Top-level manager at work just now:

"Nice work in there...great to see people operating so well outside of their comfort zones."

Dude if ANY of you fruit loops had the slightest idea where my comfort zone was I would have been unemployed a long, long time ago.  The light leaving my comfort zone right at this moment will not reach this office for hundreds of thousands of years.

Aspartame Toxicity - Confirmed as Real Thing

Yeah, I always thought aspartame was harmless. I drink diet soda like retards drink Mountain Dew and I've never had any weird effects. That all changed Sunday, August 4, Year of Our Lord 2013.

Granted, this consumption session did not qualify as what you would call "reasonable usage" or even "safe usage." I drank four large diet cokes with lunch. Did you sip them over the course of an hour, D.H.? No. Not even close. I slammed them like a frat boy in a contest afraid of having to eat sperm if he lost. 

On the way home, roughly thirty minutes after starting the chugging, I first noticed I lost all depth perception. Then colors started going screwy. For a moment it was like viewing my world through an awesome Okami filter. Then the colors went away and it was 2D black n white. Then the vision started fading entirely.

I finished the drive home because I'm ballsy as fuck, but the incident did stick in my head. I've heard about these effects before, particularly amongst airline pilots. I always thought they were bullshit.

Moral of the story: they're not. 

New Post Format

I've been toying with the idea of allowing for more frequent updates by dramatically reducing the average post size. This iPhone app looks so easy to use I'm going to give it a go. We'll see how it works. Still hoping to maintain periodic lengthy posts and I have a few ideas for new series and whatnot...these will just allow for more blog activity. Hahaha fuck me, I just wrote about blog activity. What an idiot.

My New Phone

Ready to lose a nice chunk of readers, D.H.? Then let’s do this! Meet my new phone:

Sorry. Not a joke. This is not me jumping ship in the traditional sense: I’m still proud to rock the name Droid Hayabusa, and the Android platform is still near & dear to me. However. As much as I might love the Android platform, I’m objectively analytical enough to realize when the cards are - quite frankly - stacked against me. Being well aware that pride and stubbornness are traits that rarely pay off, I have no problem exploring my options.

As I did – in a huge way – a couple months ago.

Let me wind back the clock here a bit: I was first introduced to the Android platform roughly four years ago in the form of my first smartphone – a Droid X. I’d never really considered going the Apple route for one simple reason – I couldn’t get near the Apple store in our local mall here due to my “don’t come within 15 feet of a dude in skinny jeans” rule. But I happened to be in my Verizon’s store around contract renewal time and voila – I walked out with a shiny Droid X. Unlimited data for a cool $30/month.

First off – I was fascinated by what the phone could do. Just imagining apps and searching for them in the app store – I swear there was only ONE app I could imagine that didn’t already exist.

Side note: the only app I ever dreamt up – which I still would love to have – is a little gem called SPEED TRAP. Basically, it relies on a) your GPS, and b) a nationwide network of users. The way it would work: let’s say you’re out driving one day and you note an asshole cop parked on the side of the road pointing his radar gun at you and your innocent travelers. You’d reach for your phone, tap a widget on the homescreen, and your position would automatically be documented and dispersed to the entire network. In other words, you’d spot a speed trap, tap a button, and everyone else with the app on their phone would receive notice that an asshole cop was at such-&-such a location looking to ruin commutes for people; this would afford them the opportunity to adjust their driving accordingly. A good additional side note: to prevent annoying false alarms, it might be good to have a two-stage warning process; one user hits the widget and a “tentative” status alert is sent out. A second user hits the widget in the same location within a reasonable time frame and a “confirmed” status alert is sent out. Oh shit, that’s HOT. You could pare it down, choose which zip codes you want to receive alerts from…I’m a f***ing genius.

Anyways. What were we talking about? Oh yeah…Droid X, my first phone. Well, OK, here’s the thing – I manage money as a hobby/ exercise in critical thinking. One of the biggest selling points in the smartphone was that many of my accounts can be managed via various broker apps. Brilliant! …except the apps were slow and glitch-ridden, as it turned out. Very frustrating to lose money because the phone you paid a shit-ton of money for – in conjunction with the cellular service you’re paying shit-tons of money every month for (remember I was with VERIZON at this point) – isn’t working like it’s supposed to.

Now, those of you who have been smartphone users for the past four years or so will recall what first started happening shortly thereafter: the 4G networks started rolling out. What a game-changer! So awesome. Blinding-fast Internet? Oh hell yeah! What could possibly go wrong??

Now, my thinking was this – these apps I’m struggling with? They’re constantly pulling data from various brokerages as price changes; therefore, it’s most likely the fact that I’m only on 3G that causes these apps to be so laggy and glitch. Right? I fought the urge for as long as I could…but when Verizon/Motorola pumped out their first-ever 4G device – the Droid Bionic – I was there on launch day begging them to take my money (and yes, I was uneligible for an upgrade at this point so I had to open up a second line).

Well, that was almost an instant let-down. The Bionic – no two ways about it – sucked. Here are some major problems with it: while my Droid X battery lasted for on average thirty-six hours, the Bionic would take a full battery to the graveyard in under eight hours. Also? It wasn’t any faster than the X. YES, the data speeds were quicker to a degree; I could download a full-length audio album from the Amazon app in thirty seconds whereas before it took a full minute. Yawn! My money apps were still screwy and glitchy, and what I took away from all this: the data speed differences were – for my purposes – negligible. The problems I was experiencing had to do with the operational speed of the device.

Also – the headphone jack quit working in under two months. Piece of shit.

At this point I started going down the bottomless rabbit hole of looking for answers. I researched. I rooted. I ROMed. Found a couple so-so custom ROMs that helped slightly with battery speed. However, at this point, nothing caused an improvement dramatic enough to make me comfortable such that I’d be willing to put money on the line with only my smartphone to protect me from erratic market moves.

Then I started hearing whispers of a new Verizon 4G phone…the fabled Galaxy Nexus, rumored to be released in a few short months.

I read up. 4G? Check. Better processer? Check. Also…a pure android phone. In other words – most phones run on a hybrid of the Android platform and software provided by the device manufacturer. This was to be a device with NO manufacturer interference with the Android experience.

Too good to be true, right? Let me tell you: IT WAS. Three short GD months after opening up a new line to get a Bionic at a discount (still paid $350, thanks guys!) I’m in line at another Verizon on another launch day with another handful of hundred-dollar-bills waiting to get gouged.

Let me give you the Cliff’s notes version here:

1. Anyone experiencing an issue with smartphone battery life and subsequently decides to make the move TO a Galaxy Nexus is clearly retarded. Me included. The size & type of screen you’re looking at versus the size battery powering it is laughable. It’s the equivalent of trying to run a drive-in movie projector with a battery-powered Maglite.
2. All of my apps continued to fail me regularly.
3. I live in a relatively remote area, so…in addition to all of the above, the sub-par Samsung radios in the device kept me from placing or receiving phone calls. Apparently Motorola uses top-of-the-line radios in their phones; Samsung does not.

There’s probably other shit, I can’t remember. Want to know how retarded things got? I would wake up for work, unplug my fully-charged Galaxy Nexus from the charger, listen to some tunes on the way in, text my wife, and by lunchtime the phone would be announcing to me that the battery status was at 5% or less. I would open the settings menu up daily and the settings menu would confirm the following – DAILY:

1. 75% of my battery had been expended on lighting the screen.
2. I’d had a total of less than one hour of screen time.

Wasn’t even using auto-brightness, folks – I had the brightness cranked down manually so far that I could only read my screen in an absence of daylight.

So…that pissed me off.

Time went on. I rooted, custom ROMs, all that. ROMs worth noting as far as minor battery improvements: AOKP, Eclipse…maybe some others. Can’t remember. Eventually my work cell phone (a Blackberry) died and they offered to replace it with: “…an Android! If you want. We know how much you like them…seems like you always have a new one.” I laughed. “Sure! Gimme the new Droid 4! I’m sure it’ll just disappoint the sh(t out of me!”

[Spoiler alert: it did. It’s a Bionic with a slide-out keyboard.]

At this point, some interesting developments not necessarily pertaining to the devices came around. One: the wife and I realized we were spending about $2500 a year on smartphones that neither of us were happy with. Two: Verizon – who, roughly a year prior – had eliminated their unlimited data plans for new customers while assuring existing customers that their unlimited data plans were safe forever – completely reneged and told all existing unlimited data customers that the only way they’d ever get a device upgrade again would be to give up their unlimited data plan and accept a plan wherein they pay the same amount of money for a shitty 2GB/month. Otherwise? I’d be paying $800 - $900 for my next cellular disappointment rather than just $350 - $400.

It was around this time when I let out a breath I had been holding since 2010 or so and admitted defeat: the path I was on was the wrong one.

My biggest beef was with Verizon’s anti-customer attitude, so I started searching for other carriers. The only one that stood out worth a shit was Sprint, and that only due to the fact that they still offer unlimited data. Nothing really worth pulling the trigger over, however, until one fateful Saturday morning about three months ago.

My mom calls me early just to let me know she got a new phone and ask if I’d heard anything about it. I hadn’t, but we still talked for a while and she closed out the conversation by dropping a bomb: she’d left Verizon and was on a new network. I was immediately interested. And what she said next blew my hair back hard enough to partially scalp me:

She’d gotten on a plan with Virgin Mobile (never heard of them) for $55 a month…everything unlimited.

WTF?? Did I drop acid last night? I looked into it over the following weeks and came to this conclusion: I was a bigger f***ing idiot than I was even aware of if I didn’t give it a trial. Here are the details: I would select a phone, buy it. I would pay $35 a month for service. I would get unlimited text and data and 300 talk minutes (which I never come close to as I hate talking on the phone except to my mom). No contract at any time. And I would get 14 days to try the phone out and make sure the network – which is Sprint’s, btw – was sufficient for my needs. Jesus H!

Now for the part that will be heartbreaking (and dealbreaking) for many of you:

Virgin, as it turns out, has nowhere near the device selection as their competitors. They don’t seem to get devices as timely as their competitors, and their Android lineup, in particular, is weak… last time I looked the only top-shelf device they had was a Galaxy SII.

…but they had iPhone. No 5 yet (as of early June 2013…as of this writing, the iPhone5 is available from Virgin), but they had the 4 and the 4s, which was fine with me, as these were both 3G devices. Yup. Guess what, world: I don’t want to be on a GD 4G network anymore. Why? Facts: my Droid X was on a 3G network and had zero battery trouble. Every single phone I had after that? A) a 4G device, and B) battery life that made me want to kill myself. Conclusion: 4G is an absolute battery rapist and it doesn’t improve your real-world data speeds in any significant way. End of discussion. If you are the kind of person who is OK with charging your phone multiple times per day versus multiple times per week, and you’re OK with the only tangible benefit I noted being that you save thirty seconds of download time when downloading Pink Floyd’s ANIMALS from the Amazon app store, then 4G is ALL YOURS, buddy.

I walked out with an iPhone 4s. And I…love…it.

Everything works. The shape, size, and feel are all much more solid than any Android device I owned. The screen is clearer and more engaging. It’s more intuitive aside from a few oddball hidden features. ALL THE APPS WORK. The battery is a monster and I’m back to 1.5 – 2 days per charge. I haven’t had a single force shutdown yet.

What I miss about android:

1. Widgets.
2. Swype.
3. …honestly? Nothing else. Not compared to what I have now.

Like I mentioned earlier on, I have no ill will towards Android at all; in fact, I still consider myself an Android person rather than an Apple person. As far as the device I carry with me at all times, however? I’ll put it to you like this – Android phones work exceptionally well most of the time, and if you’re the tech-minded sort, you’ll probably love exploring all that you can do with it and learning about it via research and trial & error.

If you’re the kind of person who has a) money or b) serious business on the line, I’d recommend you go iPhone as strongly as I could.

Well, there we go: it’s done. Plan on me deleting your comments unless they’re extremely funny, btw.