Let us take time to remember the Mooninite invasion of Boston one year ago wherein the mayor (Thomas M. Menino) ignored both good information and internet memes.
This is not a criticism of the Boston Police and emergency response teams who, acting on orders from the mayor, did a near perfect job of securing a huge metropolitan area and showing exactly how a coordinated response effort is supposed to unfold.
No, this is a reminder that many of or elected leaders are aging, isolated fuddy duddies who absolutely need to get out more.
Let us all recall that Boston was one of many major metropolitan areas in the US where a guerrilla marketing firm had L E D Moonanite signs posted in an effort to raise US awareness of the AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE movie to a fever pitch.
Let us recall that these guerrilla placement missions were video taped and posted online for months prior to the incident in Boston.
Let us recall that Boston Bomb authorities also detonated a traffic counting device just weeks following the event. No one was charged in this "hoax".
Let us all remember that other major metropolitan areas - Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco - all identified the objects as harmless and either removed them or left them in place.
Let us all recall that Google exists.
That said, I submit that the incident in Boston, the confusion which followed and any expenses incurred were the sole responsibility of the Mayor's Office of Boston. This is not to say that Mayor Thomas M. Menino was necessarily wrong in activating his reaction teams. Thomas M. Menino's only mistake was not having access to a media team to research the issue with all resources available once the effort was underway.
Look folks, innocent bomb scares happen. Things get blown up by mistake. The police will, on occasion, be called for an emergency that doesn't exist. As I've stated before, just because I leave my lunch box on a park bench and the bomb squad is called out to detonate my bologna sandwich, doesn't mean the the mayor's office gets to charge me with a hoax.
The incident in Boston was a simple misunderstanding. The charges filed by the city of Boston on the individuals responsible were a simple face-saving measure. The entire event was a perfect storm of media and pop-culture un-awareness, failure to heed good information and simply living in a time of heightened awareness. In the end, Aqua Teen Hunger Force got some headline exposure, the Boston authorities got an excellent disaster drill and Thomas M. Menino got to get out a little bit and smell the roses. Which he needs to do more often...
Bologna sandwiches will get detonated from time to time. It's no one's fault. Take it as experience and move on.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Transpermia
Sometimes I wonder if my scripts cause a wave of search traffic over at New Scientist and Wired. And if those administrators look at the traffic querying words like transpermia and gigantomachy and wonder what exactly is wrong with the world...
To them the question is merely rhetorical. I, in fact, know...
To them the question is merely rhetorical. I, in fact, know...
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Lots of Work - Little Time
You know the drill...
I have tonnes of work and only so much waking-time. In most comic enterprises, this would result in a skipped strip and a lame apology.
Well here at www.exxarr.com we do things a little differently.
At www.vexxarr.com we give you and exceedingly weak excuse AND I make up all the due strips and back-post them to the archives.
I mean, isn't that better? It's like you get to store up my strips in your little cheek-pouches and then enjoy then - en mass if you will - later, back in your little rodent den.
Oh come now, I've seen you. Your little straw bed, your little wood-knot hole. You, reading Vexxarr while clutching a sunflower seed in your two, thumbless paws.
Makes me want to pet you all...
I have tonnes of work and only so much waking-time. In most comic enterprises, this would result in a skipped strip and a lame apology.
Well here at www.exxarr.com we do things a little differently.
At www.vexxarr.com we give you and exceedingly weak excuse AND I make up all the due strips and back-post them to the archives.
I mean, isn't that better? It's like you get to store up my strips in your little cheek-pouches and then enjoy then - en mass if you will - later, back in your little rodent den.
Oh come now, I've seen you. Your little straw bed, your little wood-knot hole. You, reading Vexxarr while clutching a sunflower seed in your two, thumbless paws.
Makes me want to pet you all...
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
More Silliness
If you liked Beef jerky, you'll love Bees!
MY ROOMMATE THE IDIOT: BEES
Idiot - Jeremy Renta
Not Idiot - Josh Davenpot
Doctor - Hunter Cressall
Not Idiot - Josh Davenpot
Doctor - Hunter Cressall
Monday, January 07, 2008
Video Goodness for You!
My friends and I have been busy... So enjoy the fruits of our twisted souls. Or meats, if you will... A special kudos to George Milton for his musical talent...
MY ROOMMATE THE IDIOT: BEEF JERKY
Idiot - Jeremy Renta
Not Idiot - Josh Davenpot
Doctor - Hunter Cressall
Not Idiot - Josh Davenpot
Doctor - Hunter Cressall
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Calendar Woes
Once again our archive calendar has collapsed. Once again the Stalwart Ratzmandious (Carl) has saved the day. It makes me thank God that there is such a thing as England and that it will write code for a .php calendar implementation.
God save the Queen. Thank her for my archives.
A humble ex patriot, rebel and nerd,
H
** update **
The calendar is fixed...if a bit...er...expanded. My thanks to Carl, my coding expert and benefactor. Forgive me if adding the back-dated comics clear to 1969 does not occur with unbridled alacrity.
I did however catch us up to Friday so there that at least.
God save the Queen. Thank her for my archives.
A humble ex patriot, rebel and nerd,
H
** update **
The calendar is fixed...if a bit...er...expanded. My thanks to Carl, my coding expert and benefactor. Forgive me if adding the back-dated comics clear to 1969 does not occur with unbridled alacrity.
I did however catch us up to Friday so there that at least.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Wednesday?
Sorry gang,
Had to take a personal day for...WORK. I figure you've gotten two bonus ministrips for Christmas and New Year's Day so you should be happy. Still, I'll stack two on Friday just to make good on my ner' ending pledge.
Long live the Vexxarr!
Had to take a personal day for...WORK. I figure you've gotten two bonus ministrips for Christmas and New Year's Day so you should be happy. Still, I'll stack two on Friday just to make good on my ner' ending pledge.
Long live the Vexxarr!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Anti-Vista
Many of you may know me from my Mac Parody. This has given the erroneous impression to some that I loathe Apple and (by some bizarre opposition calculus) love Microsoft.
I think that I have made my position clear that I hate Operating Systems in general. It should therefore be - by extension - no surprise that I have a bone to pick with Vista.
This is true.
Yet with Vista, it is not a mere bone but rather and entire Harryhausen-ian horde of skeletal warriors...that I pick.
(ahem)
Let me start over.
I became acquainted with Vista Home Edition with my new laptop. I knew that my Acer Aspire 3680 came with Vista pre-installed but I figured that I would give it a shot. Well, what they say about its performance drag and peripheral incompatibilities is true. Having lived through both Windows 98 and Windows 2000, I can tell you that Vista's birthing woes are objectively worse than one would expect from any new operating system - and this includes OSX which was a complete reboot of the Apple product line.
Now Vista at its core has many things going for it. It is at least as stable as Windows XP which is to say as stable as any home computing device gets these days (sorry Apple). It is very easy on the eyes. It is also fairly intuitive. However, in order to truly enjoy Vista, you must not only be logged on as administrator (something Microsoft now inexplicably discourages) but you must be at least a little familiar with administrative rights, servers and networks as Vista operates in this sort of world. What this means to the average user is that Vista will do things - strange things - at inconvenient and often disastrous times. From my point of view even the fact that Vista does things when I'm not telling it explicitly to do things is itself a bit shady.
Add to this the fact that Vista has a comedicly large footprint, saps resources and generally acts like a blob of poor coding and you have a rather off-putting user end experience. Pardon me for placing some credibility with Microsoft when I say that they simply should have known better.
Now Microsoft wants us - and by us I mean the entire planet - to drop 2000, NT and XP and adopt Vista even though it doesn't work like a finished piece of code. Consumers have responded in the appropriate fashion by uninstalling Vista and going back to whatever worked best for them. In my case, I purchased my first copy of XP Pro and am happy to report that it is a slick and jim-dandy operating system! Still apologists are trying to create a parallel world where consumers are happy with Vista and Microsoft need not address their blunder.
The problem is this. We the consumers need to be able to decide what works and what doesn't (this means you too Steve Jobs). When something comes out like Vista that has some game-ending issues the consumer needs to be heard on the matter.
Microsoft? We'll just drop support for XP so you HAVE to buy Vista.
Well this time there is something we can do. Dell and many others offer XP (again) on most new machines. When purchasing a new PC please ask you retailer for XP (you'll thank me) and if they don't offer XP for that computer ask for a system for which that they can. If they don't have anything you can use that comes with XP please say no thank-you and tell them why. There are plenty of reputable computer vendors who will build a nice system and include a licensed version of Windows 2000 or XP at your option. In this way, we can force Microsoft to address Vista's fundamental failure and maybe try something new like a total OS reboot (it worked for Apple).
We need to be firm on this and we need to stick to our guns. If the future is Vista, we can look forward to a PC price point (due to performance requirements) closer to that of Apple. We can look forward to feeling as helpless with our home computers as we do at work on the office network. Most of all we can look forward to losing the personal of personal computing. Microsoft has written some pretty impressive GUI in the past. Based on my experience with the Xbox 360, I know that they still do. Vista wasn't a planned violation of good code execution, it was an error in judgment. All we need to do is force Microsoft to admit their mistake and go back to the drawing board. Think it can't happen?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you OS 9.
I think that I have made my position clear that I hate Operating Systems in general. It should therefore be - by extension - no surprise that I have a bone to pick with Vista.
This is true.
Yet with Vista, it is not a mere bone but rather and entire Harryhausen-ian horde of skeletal warriors...that I pick.
(ahem)
Let me start over.
I became acquainted with Vista Home Edition with my new laptop. I knew that my Acer Aspire 3680 came with Vista pre-installed but I figured that I would give it a shot. Well, what they say about its performance drag and peripheral incompatibilities is true. Having lived through both Windows 98 and Windows 2000, I can tell you that Vista's birthing woes are objectively worse than one would expect from any new operating system - and this includes OSX which was a complete reboot of the Apple product line.
Now Vista at its core has many things going for it. It is at least as stable as Windows XP which is to say as stable as any home computing device gets these days (sorry Apple). It is very easy on the eyes. It is also fairly intuitive. However, in order to truly enjoy Vista, you must not only be logged on as administrator (something Microsoft now inexplicably discourages) but you must be at least a little familiar with administrative rights, servers and networks as Vista operates in this sort of world. What this means to the average user is that Vista will do things - strange things - at inconvenient and often disastrous times. From my point of view even the fact that Vista does things when I'm not telling it explicitly to do things is itself a bit shady.
Add to this the fact that Vista has a comedicly large footprint, saps resources and generally acts like a blob of poor coding and you have a rather off-putting user end experience. Pardon me for placing some credibility with Microsoft when I say that they simply should have known better.
Now Microsoft wants us - and by us I mean the entire planet - to drop 2000, NT and XP and adopt Vista even though it doesn't work like a finished piece of code. Consumers have responded in the appropriate fashion by uninstalling Vista and going back to whatever worked best for them. In my case, I purchased my first copy of XP Pro and am happy to report that it is a slick and jim-dandy operating system! Still apologists are trying to create a parallel world where consumers are happy with Vista and Microsoft need not address their blunder.
The problem is this. We the consumers need to be able to decide what works and what doesn't (this means you too Steve Jobs). When something comes out like Vista that has some game-ending issues the consumer needs to be heard on the matter.
Microsoft? We'll just drop support for XP so you HAVE to buy Vista.
Well this time there is something we can do. Dell and many others offer XP (again) on most new machines. When purchasing a new PC please ask you retailer for XP (you'll thank me) and if they don't offer XP for that computer ask for a system for which that they can. If they don't have anything you can use that comes with XP please say no thank-you and tell them why. There are plenty of reputable computer vendors who will build a nice system and include a licensed version of Windows 2000 or XP at your option. In this way, we can force Microsoft to address Vista's fundamental failure and maybe try something new like a total OS reboot (it worked for Apple).
We need to be firm on this and we need to stick to our guns. If the future is Vista, we can look forward to a PC price point (due to performance requirements) closer to that of Apple. We can look forward to feeling as helpless with our home computers as we do at work on the office network. Most of all we can look forward to losing the personal of personal computing. Microsoft has written some pretty impressive GUI in the past. Based on my experience with the Xbox 360, I know that they still do. Vista wasn't a planned violation of good code execution, it was an error in judgment. All we need to do is force Microsoft to admit their mistake and go back to the drawing board. Think it can't happen?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you OS 9.
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