…but I have to be all, ya know, professional and polite. 😉
Month: February 2008
jasondunn.com, Now iPod Touch/iPhone Icon Friendly
Courtesy of Mr. Darius Wey, if you add this site as a shortcut to your iPod Touch or iPhone, you should see a snazzy icon. You know, just in case this blog is just SO critical to your daily existence that you want to add it to your iPod/iPhone home screen. Bwahaha…
A Winter Sunset
Keep Your Priorities Straight
This is an interesting article about the addiction that some people have to World of Warcraft, and what it can do to a marriage:
“Jocelyn had been friends with her ex-husband Peter since the age of 13, but it took only nine months for her marriage to collapse. “I bought the game for him for Christmas 2004, when it first came out. By May we had our first serious discussion about where our marriage was going, and by September I had moved out,” she said. Jocelyn recalled one particular incident that was typical of Peter’s habits. “I had set aside 30 minutes for us to watch a television show together, and he couldn’t. He was stuck on a raid, and completely failed to understand why I was upset,” she said. Peter’s domestic duties also suffered. He stopped paying bills, she says, and refused to do his share of the housework.”
This is clearly an extreme case, but certainly not unheard of. Anyone with an addictive personality would certainly have trouble resisting getting addicted to a game that has no ending. World of Warcraft is probably at the root of more marriage break-ups than any other game in history, yet if it wasn’t the game it might be any other number of things that person would get addicted to. Should the game come with a warning label on the outside? “Caution: May Be Harmful to Marital Harmony.” I believe that people are responsible for their own actions and that blamings games, music, or anything else is a cop-out.
Breathtaking Flame Fractals
Math has never been so beautiful – you can grab 50 flame fractal wallpapers from this site. Unfortunately they want all the pageviews they can get, so there’s no single ZIP file download – you’ll have to grab ’em all manually like I did.
I Went To High School with Feist? Whoa…
If you watch TV, even the commercial-skipping type, you can’t help but have heard the song “1234” by Feist, featured on the Apple Nano commercial. You know, the insanely catchy one where’s she’s dancing around in the sparkly blue outfit:
Based purely off the video, I thought maybe Feist was the band name for Zayra off Rock Star: INXS, then I remembered that Zayra couldn’t really sing and Feist clearly could. 😉 I bought the song because I thought it was catchy, but didn’t really look into who the group was. Then last week I read an article talking about how Feist was really Leslie Feist, and how she was in a high-school band called Placebo. A bell went off in my head, because when I was in high school (Bishop Carrol in Calgary) there was a band called Placebo that a friend of mine was in (I didn’t know Leslie very well though, more like a friend of a friend). A quick Google image search brought me to this picture:
Hey, I recognize her! I did a bit more searching and found this video of Placebo performing live, which confirmed it: I did go to high school with her! The bass player in that video is named Elescia (not sure about the spelling of her name – it’s been a while!), and I went to junior high school with her. The guitar player is named Keiran, and his dad was the art teacher at our high school. I recognize the drummer as well, but I can’t remember her name. What a small world – crazy! I wish Leslie well – go Calgary girl go!
Dell Gaming Training
A little over two years ago I was putting together a system quote at Dell, and I had a little chuckle when I go to the part about Training and Certification. Here’s why:
Halo training? Sweet! 😀
Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” and The Office = Genius
I love watching what a talented video editor can produce with quality content, and this is a great example of that…
Baby Liv Arwen Berreth Welcomed into the World Way Early
That’s a picture of tiny Liv Arwen Berreth, the daughter Kim and Mitch, some good friends of Ashley and I. Liv (pronounced “Leave”) was born at 6:40 pm on Saturday the 9th, many weeks too early, and only weighs 810 grams. That’s one LITTLE baby! Both baby and mother are doing well. Welcome to the big world Liv!
Charities Alienating Supporters: I’m Mad at MADD
Yesterday my office phone rang, and when I picked it up, I instantly felt a small surge of anger. Why? Because it was MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving). So, yeah, I was mad at MADD. How could I possibly be upset at a charity that does such worthwhile work? I’ve supported them in the past with donations, and I support their goals. But somehow they got my work number, and it drives me nuts to be interrupted by a telemarketer when I’m in my office working.
The first time they called, I very politely asked that they remove my work number from their database, and gave them my home number so they could use that instead. The woman I spoke to was very nice and said it would be updated within the next 24 hours. A week later, I got the same phone call – once again, being very polite, I explained the situation and asked them to remove my work number from their database. Two weeks later, they again called me on my work number. Feeling a bit of frustration by this point, I explained that I’d already asked for my number to be removed twice prior, and the woman apologized and said she’d take it right to her supervisor. Guess what happened a week after that? Another phone call to my business line. Again, I explained it all. Again, they insisted they’d remove my work number from their database. A week later it happened again. I requested the same thing again.
A few weeks passed, and I thought the problem was solved, but yesterday they called me again. This time I calmly explained to the woman that I had no choice but to block their number from getting through to me again because they were not honouring my five-time request to be contacted at a different phone number. I don’t know how MADD raises their money – if they use in-house employees or a contracted service (I bet the latter have somewhat, ah, “looser” ethics), but this experience has certainly left a bad impression of their organization with me…