Some people just cannot speak. This is different than not being able to read, and realize illiteracy makes me sad. Not the same thing here. Not being able to infuriates me. People call in, and sometimes I really have to bend my brain into a weird shape to understand what people are saying. Accents can be difficult, especially native English speakers from other countries. South Africa is cool to listen to, but an Outbacker from Australia (is that the right term? I’m not Australian, but I am talking about someone from the desert, definitely not Sydney.*) is a bit weird.

The most common speech problem I’ve encountered is the “Swallowed R” or, more whimsically, “Wubble-yoos.” I don’t know if “Swallowed R” is the technical term for it, but this is my lay-term. Here are some examples of what I mean:

• R is pronounced “ARRR” not “ahwll”
• One, two, thwee, foall, five, six, seven.
• The quick bwoeln fawkes jumped ovahl the lazy dalg

That last one may not be fair or nice, but that’s an extreme case of Wubble-yoos. I’ll be cool here though, sometimes speech impediments can’t be helped and I don’t hold it against people with this issue - that’s not the kind of asshole I am. What does bother me is people being lazy about their elocution and enunciation.

Please, please, please (I can’t stress this enough it seems!) open your mouth and use your tongue and teeth to form your words, people! Just because you’re okay sounding like a four-year-old (I’m sorry, “foall-yeahl-ahld”), and those around you are used to it, doesn’t mean it’s acceptable outside your bubble.

Take a damn English course and get it right! Make it your second language, and if you still can’t swing it, make it your third language too. Language is important, and, while I understand the natural evolution of a language is to reduce muscle-movement complexity (look at Chinese), don’t push towards that harder! If everyone pronounced things how they felt, nobody would know what the hell anyone was saying!

*As I was writing the word Sydney above, a call came in and it was an American calling me via VOIP from Australia! How’s that for a coincidence? I asked him what the proper term was for someone from the Outback, and he said that one would say they were “from the bush.” neat!

‘Tis the season to bulk up like a body-builder. My weights of choice are tons and tons of shopping bags. I am the best purse Ame has ever had! She just loads me up with whatever she’s bought and moves on to the next store. We don’t shop like this, except very rarely, so my spindly little arms are getting quite a workout.

We went to the mall recently, and the bags were digging in to my hands quite spectacularly. When the round of shopping was done and we reached the car to unload, my arm and shoulder were pretty sore. The next day, my wrist was feeling the pain. Carpal Tunnel! Carpal Tunnel!

“What’s in the box?”
“PAIN”

It’s no longer topical, but when has that ever stopped me before? Ame likes to play the “no purchase necessary” McDonald’s Monopoly sweepstakes when it comes around, and this last season was no exception. We have McDonald’s a couple times a week as it is, so this game is really just an opportunity to collect little colored Atlantic City properties and hope for a match or instant win.

The odds of winning any prize is about 1 in 3 or 4, but “any prize” really sucks like a small frosty with purchase of a large drink. Right on. The big money is in the property matches, and, just like Monopoly, the shitty properties are the shitty prizes, but matching Boardwalk and Park Place is where the real action is. Don’t get me wrong, matching even the dark purples, Baltic and Mediterranean (yes, I’ve practically memorized the game board of Monopoly), the lowest property in the game, would still be awesome because winning is awesome.

If I recall correctly, the odds of winning the Texas State Lottery is something like 1 in 65,000,000. At those levels, it really is no real appreciable difference mathematically in buying a ticket or not. Not quite a less-than-zero percent chance, but why bother? It reminds me of a goofy and kind of insightful comment I saw at Slashdot. 

“…you can have a negative percent chance of succeeding in a task. For example, if you have a -5% chance of succeeding, not only will you fail every time you make an attempt, you will also fail 1 in 20 times that you don’t even try.”

So whenever the McOpoly game comes around again, I just roll my eyes and hand all my miniature Monopoly properties over to Ame whereupon she hoards them with glee like some sort of paper-token miser.

Goddammit! Park Place again!?
- Ame

And this isn’t a bad thing, no, really! As you know, I work Friday through Monday, but the office is suffering some emergency maintenance issues. The space is flooded and inoperable, so no one can really do anything until the mess is cleaned up. The best part is I’m getting paid for the time.

Of course, there’s always bad news, and it’s really my own fault. I’ve been playing Mother 3 during my downtime at work; it really helps kill the time, and it’s a great game to boot. Every night before I left  work for home, I’d make a backup of my EEPROM (save-game file) just so I could have the option of continuing the game at home. This past Friday came and went, I worked, I played Mother 3, but it was the only night that I didn’t make a backup. I was at the final final final boss of the game when I it was time  to leave, and guess what I didn’t do? That’s right. No backup of the save-game.

Now I’m all freaking out (not really, it’s just a game) that my progress since my last backup (a significant amount!) could be lost. What if the hard drive on my desktop computer at work was affected? There are any number of scenarios that could warrant either a hard drive replacement or wiping it out and restoring it fresh! I’m sure I’m just being paranoid, and the file is fine, but the chance is there.

So, take the good with the bad though. Ame and I have really enjoyed these days off.

Gahh! No time for any real content. Two tests next week, the game design bug has bitten me hard, now I have work, and oh my god oh my god oh my god.

In semi-real news, celebreality on VH1 blows donkey balls. “Real Chance of Love?” Gross.

In REAL news, I’m an early voter. McCain? Obama? Nope! Libertarian party, suckas!

LATE