The Fury Blogger

So I was over here reading the Foreign Policy blog when I came across this gem.

Despite having served for years as a distinguished Pakistani diplomat, Akbar Zeb reportedly cannot receive accreditation as Pakistan’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with his credentials, and everything to do with his name — which, in Arabic, translates to “biggest dick”.

I knew that Akbar meant great or big in arabic. Hence suicide bombers yelling ALLAH AKBAR before they blow themselves up. Or when there’s anti-western culture rallies, they shout the same thing. But I didn’t know about Zeb. I wonder what that means in Pakistan or if his parents were more cruel than our hippies here.

I grew up with a kid named Zeb once. Now that I think about it, he was a dick.

What a slow day. Nothing exciting has happened all of last week and this week wasn’t shaping up to be much better. Thankfully I got the best call EVAR.

Apparently, by the grace of God I had really pissed this guy off without ever speaking to him. His name?

Christopher Robbins.

He just kept yelling at me and yelling at me. How did I respond when he asked me if I had anything to say for myself?

“Oh, bother.”

I’m so going to lose my job. Ha-ha.

If you know me, you know that I am a retard when it comes to techy-thinks. Not in the sense that I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m so retardedly happy when new things are announced that have to deal with technology.

So, today Apple’s Steve Jobs announced what everyone has been waiting for. The new Apple iPad(Scratch that). The new Apple iPhone 10 inch! (No,no. Scratch that too).

OK, here we go. Today Apple announced the new 9.7 inch Apple iTouch! *PARTY POPPERS AND WHISTLING*

If you can get beyond the sarcasm you can see that I am not happy about this new announcement. This is very disappointing to me because I love my iPhone and I love Apple, so I thought to myself how can this go wrong?

This is how:

This is not a revolutionary piece of equipment. All this is, is an iPod Touch with a much larger screen and an e-reader. Now I wouldn’t be that disappointed in the announcement if Mr. Jobs didn’t continue to refer to the new iPad as a computer. It’s not. It’s an extremely large iPod.

I pulled up the iPad features page and it reads like it’s explaining an iPod. No seriously, have a look for yourself.

In fact, it appears that the iPod Touch feature page is more detailed in explanation than the iPad.

Granted it would be insanely wicked to watch my iPod movies and TV shows on a 9.7″ screen, but at $500 worth? No thank you.

Here are the things that this new piece of machine is lacking:

A Camera. I think this thing would be insanely cool if it had a camera. Maybe even a two sided camera. One for the front, one for the back. That way you can have conference calls with others at work. (I’ll get into that more later)

Multitasking. HOLY HELL APPLE. How can you NOT implement that feature into this device? I know it can support it with your new ‘A4′ processor. You’re going to lose business from your iPhone to the new Nexus One just for this feature. How can you not recognize that and capitalize on this? That’s some epic fail Apple.

E-Reader in Color. Yea, black and white. Not even your browser is in black and white. Why would your e-reader be subpar? Just like you mentioned in your presentation, there’s still a reason for people to buy a Kindle and Nook. So this isn’t much of an upgrade from what’s already available.

Protection. Everyone knows what the protective cases look like for the iPhone and iPod. I can’t imagine one for the iPad. I dropped my iPhone once from the height of about 6 inches. It shattered my front screen. BAM. It cost me over $150 to repair and I couldn’t get it done through AT&T or Apple. I had to use a third party to fix it. Thankfully they were amazing, but it was really expensive. Can you imagine what it would cost if you dropped your iPad? OUCH.

There’s a lot more I’d like to get into, but I won’t. It’s late and I’m still at work. I just feel that Apple really missed out on a great opportunity here.

But knowing Apple, I know they like to satisfy us with appetizers then release more features at a later date. Just look at the iPhone now with video camera! WEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Anyway.

Great anticipation has killed this day for me. I’m not a happy camper.

I can’t have a Quote of the Day this week without having a political quote. This should show you my political leanings if you didn’t know already. Enjoy your Friday!

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

Amen.

Last night while bashing heads in while playing Modern Warfare 2, I apparently tickled someones fancy. JAKE IT UP.

Now since I’m not shy and my personal blog is listed on my gaming community page, he tracked me down to advise me of how poor my writing is.

So here’s a special out to you JAKE IT UP! You get your very own post. Feel free to come back more often and I’ll do my best to limit the noob tube rapes.

You were actually cracking me up, so no hard feelings. If you do come back feel free to toss me another friend invite.

So, I had a crazy dream last night. It was pretty vivid and I remember it like I was actually there. Normally I can tell if it’s a dream or not, but this one I couldn’t until I woke up.

So for whatever reason I’m in some large city on the East Coast. Since I’ve never been to the East Coast before I can’t tell you which one this was. I can only assume that this was triggered by my reading of this post over at GirlofWords.

For some reason, Anderson Cooper of CNN climbed up this multi-floored apartment building from the outside to get inside. But then instantly it was him and I at the front door of his grandmothers apartment.

We go inside and the place is a bit older, but it’s reallllllly nice. Of course Anderson had to give his loving respects to his Grandmother who he apparently hasn’t seen for a while. They caught up on what they’ve missed and I noticed that she had a lot of glasses on the ground (bifocals?). All the lenses from the glasses were spread out on the ground along with the frames.

I picked up all the lenses and frames off the ground and Anderson questioned his grandma to make sure she was feeling OK. During this point I went into the bedroom areas and there was a very huge kids room complete with a basketball court. There were some holes in the wall from old age or poor maintenance and some dry wall missing in other areas, but besides that it was a really nice room.

To the right of ths room was another which seemed to be tailored more for a girl and was very nice looking.

Then the dream fast forwards a week or so and Anderson’s grandmother passes away, but I guess I made such a nice impression on her that she wanted me and my daughter to move into the apartment.

We moved in immediately, but the apartment building didn’t do a very good job of cleaning up. There were still holes in the wall, some bugs in the area where the drywall was missing and just a cheap board was placed there to cover it up and spackled a little bit to make it appear like a wall.

They even left some of the personal belongings of Mrs. Cooper there.

And that’s about it. That’s the end of my dream. I can only assume that the East coast part of my dream represents my wanting to visit the East coast and me talking to my friends Jacque and Tracey a lot who both live on that side of the country.

Anderson Cooper probably represents my daily reading of CNN.com

And the apartment represents my soon to be finalized divorce and my moving out and starting a new life.

I can’t explain the glasses on the ground though or any details of the apartment. It was all kind of weird. I also had the feeling of something catastrophic that happened or was going to happen, but my dream never went into detail about it. It was just a feeling.

Hmmmm.

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.” – J K Rowling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2003

Never actually thought I’d use a Harry Potter quote for my first week of “Quote of the Day”. Well there you have it, I can even surprise myself.

Here’s your dose of FML for January 20, 2010. Just an FYI, I downloaded the FML official application on my iPhone. It’s on!

Today, my boss gave me an evaluation form for him and told me it was totally anonymous. So, I decided to really be rude about it. At lunch, I asked a co-worker what he put on the evaluation, and he said, “What evaluation?” FML

Today, as I walked into my class, someone shouted at me, “Wild Snorlax Appeared! Use Your Ultra Balls!”, since I am overweight and everyoen in the class laughed at me. I got made fun of by Pokemon nerds. FML

LOL

This is a follow up post from my last post regarding my dealings with Time Warner Cable.

So my bill was due yesterday and I am ready to make my payment today. I called and initially got the automated voice who can tell you what you owe and take a payment over the phone.

The voice advises me that my balance is $293.32 and it’s due in full immediately. Whoa, that’s a pretty expensive bill for just a cable bill. Thankfully do to all my dealings with Time Warner, I know they like to scare you and tell you what your January and your February bill is going to be in hopes that you’ll pay both.

So I get connected to a live person and here is an amazing part. Both the live person and the automated machine had the same total balance due! This is unlike Time Warner and I am truly impressed.

So my next question was obvious, I asked what my minimum amount due was and the advised me it was $130.89. Now this is a little bit more than I was expecting to pay, but I wasn’t going to cry foul over spilt milk. I was hoping for a bill around $124, plus or minus some change, but whatever. I can live with $130.89. After that $25 discount I received, and knowing my bill is always supposed to be around $149 something, it would just make sense. Oh well.

So my math senses started to tingle. If I subtract the $130.89 from the total balance of $293.32, I get $162.43.

Wait, wait. How does this make sense? So I asked the person, what is my bill supposed to be before all the taxes that you guys add?

Before taxes I owe $126.73

So my next question should be obvious as well. What is it supposed to be after taxes? The lady said $136 approximately. I said, I’ll be nice and throw on another $10 in taxes and make it $146.

So why, oh why, will I owe $162.43 next month for a bill that’s not even due yet? There’s no late fees. There’s no movie charges. There’s nothing other than my base bill with assumed taxes. Are you telling me that I’m the only person in the world who is getting a $35.70 taxed cable bill?

And to couple this with what I’ve been told by every rep that I’ve ever spoke with stating my bill after taxes should approach $150, but never go over it. This is getting to be a bit annoying.

So maybe I should call the corporate office. It’s one cluster after another with Time Warner and I’m beginning to wonder how many people they’re taking advantage of who don’t look into their balances due.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received.

I love this man so much.