Why is this so complicated?

My upstairs neighbor has again switched wifi channels to the same fucking one I use.  This, of course, completely fucks with my wifi throughput.  All of this, despite the fact that she has an N channel that I expect she actually uses for things, since that's faster.  This makes her use of the G channel that I use essentially just interference.

So I thought, "I should just get a wifi card that supports N, so I can switch to that, as that space is largely empty."  I look online, amazon has a decent card for a decent price.  I then think about looking to see if I can just pick one up tomorrow someplace locally.

Dear every store that has an actual physical store I could go to,

I don't care what you can ship me.  Amazon can ship me everything in existence.  If I want something shipped, I'm buying it from them.  They're going to beat you on price, and they're certainly going to beat you on hassle.  If I'm on your webpage, I want to know if you have a thing in a store, so I can plan to go to your store to buy it.  Don't bring up bullshit like, "ship it to the store!"  That's stupid.  You're stupid for even suggesting that.  Yes.  Let me give you more money, spend more time futzing with shit, and then have to drive to your store to pick up the thing.  That's far nicer than just having the thing show up in my mailbox.

I mean, is there anyone in retail management who isn't a fucking moron?  Don't try to copy amazon, because you're going to do it poorly.  You have actual stores.  Have your webpage be completely tied in to your inventory systems.  That is the thing you have on your side.  Inventory close to where I currently am.  Anything that doesn't leverage that actual shit, in an actual store, is missing your only fucking advantage.

Let's talk about the only companies that I can think of that seem to realize this.  Grocery stores.  What's at Safeway?  Food.  A bunch of fucking food.  If I want food, I can be confident I will find some there.  What do I see if I look at the Safeway webpage?  Some fucking ads about what they've got.  Here's a little play.

Me:  Hey Safeway, what's going on?
Safeway: We've got a bunch of fucking shrimp this week!  Want some fucking shrimp?  Like $10/pound.
Me:  Wow, I kind of want some shrimp now!
Safeway:  Damn right you do.  We've got peaches too.  Ready to be fooled into thinking you like peaches before being disappointed how fucking messy they are to actually eat?
Me: And how!
Safeway: How about chips?
Me: I have chips.
Safeway: Do you have cheddar and sour cream lays?
Me: Like ruffles?
Safeway: Nope, the regular thin ones.  Fuck.  Even I didn't know they made those.
Me: So I can get that gross "just ate cheddar/sour cream chips" mouth-feel without paying the ruffles premium?
Safeway:  $2.99 each when you buy four of a set that was apparently put together by a lunatic.
Me: Why am I not buying food right now?
Safeway: Fuck if I know.

See?  Safeway is telling me what they have at their store right now.  They're not telling me that they can deliver bananas on Tuesday, or if I'd like, I can get some plantains from their "marketplace resellers."

This isn't hard to understand, so why isn't it clear to everyone who doesn't have to throw their products into the trash if they don't sell them fast enough?

Thursday: A bunch of things, apparently.

Part 1: Import/Export.

Yes, this is one of those "drugs/money/guns" shots.  Except this is coffee/salt/nuts.

I think I have everything I need for this.  I'm mailing out packages tomorrow since I think my options are either 1) Mail a bunch of this ahead of time; 2) Not bring clothes in my suitcase.  So, easy decision.

Part 2: Music in Movies.

I guess there are a bunch of shitty action-y movies coming out?  Or on DVD?  Whatever.  The point is, that when I watch actual TV instead of DVR TV, they're advertising all the time.  However, all of these movies use the same kind of loud stinger soundtracks, kind of like Inception and Star Trek 2(a) did.  This is dumb.

This link goes to Bach's Air.  There's a bunch of dead time at the beginning for some reason.  Now, here's a bit from End of Evangelion.  I don't think that's the actual movie sound, as I thought there were words.  Still, it shows the Asuka vs the production evas fight, which I know was set to the Air.  You don't need a constant pounding soundtrack shouting at you "THIS IS ACTION!  THERE IS A FIGHT GOING ON NOW, AND THINGS ARE HAPPENING!  BOOM BOOM BOOM!"  You can see the action, you can see the rage in Asuka's face, you can see the destruction and gore of the battle.  This isn't some stupid shooty-shooty-bang-bang fight.  She slices off that's one's arm, and when it doesn't stop, she twists its fucking head to kill it.  The music complements the video.  It doesn't just tell you the exact same thing.

If you can tell the story in pictures, you don't need to shout at people to get your point across.

Part 3: Goats.

This commercial plays a lot too.

So:

Totes my goats.

Part 4: Another Let's Make Up Stories.

I did this before.  Here's the original picture.

 Then I make up stories.

Even in the 60s, liberals were fighting their unholy war on Christmas.

"Oh yes, this child you picked up will work perfectly.  Great Cthulhu will be pleased."

"Wait, why the fuck did I just buy a christmas tree at a grocery store?  I'm going to have to take this on the bus to get home.  I'm going to be that guy. On the bus.  With a fucking tree."

"I SAID, THE COMMUNISTS ARE STEALING OUR FREEDOM!  I'LL STAND OUT HERE WHILE YOU SHOP TO PROTECT YOU!"  Also, look at the right side of the image.  You could get grocery concierges in the 1960s.  They'd advise you as to which canned processed food product was the best.

"What the fuck did I buy that would fit in this box?"

"Freedom!"

Part 5: Links.

• Source for that image.
• I'm increasingly happy that I no longer live in Michigan.
• I saw this in the RSS today, and it made me realize that I don't think I've watched food network in a very long time.  Maybe like a year or so?  Now, if I want to watch cooking shows, the internet gives me far better options.
• Food wishes.  Yes, he puts cayenne in everything.  Almost everything he makes looks good, and almost nothing he makes seems like you have to have years of cooking experience to do it.
• Sorted food.  Not quite as consistently good recipes, but they cover the humor/social interaction side of a cooking show better than anyone on food tv.
• The handle it part of epic meal time.  Obviously over the top, but their once weekly handle it thing presents an actual recipe that could reasonably be made.
• Nicko's kitchen.  Not something I always watch, but that's partially because he's themed by day, and not every theme works all the time.

Monday: Meetings and Telecons

I guess the good thing about having them all on Monday is that they're at least over for the rest of the week.  It also means that I have a bunch of time where I don't have to actively think about things, because the meeting is talking about something I'm not directly working on.  So, due to the fact that this video came out last night (similar to how this one came out just before this blog post):

Catbug!

A few obvious mistakes:  Too tall/not chubby enough; arms too low on body; head a bit wonky; ears wonky; forgotten tongue; I over highlighted and accidentally filled his one eye in.  Still.  Catbug!

• What are you doing, fawn?  You're just being dumb now.
• Squirrels.
• I noticed this in last week's episode too.
• Teddy bear face flowers.  I thought about it, and seriously, it's taken thousands of years of civilization and technology to reach this point.  All the billions of people who've lived in a dark demon-filled world where they toiled until their dreary deaths, never to know the wonder that is the teddy bear face flowers.  Finally, after centuries of "florists" and "knowing that bears exist," we finally master this wonderful art, this pinnacle of progress, this botanical bounty.  Then, one day, Jimmy fucks it all up.  Great work defending humanity, Jimmy.

Tuesday: Today I fell for the oldest trick in the world.

First, Julie posted a comment about ramen, and how it would be tasty.

That led me to think the same thing, something that was boosted by the fact that I can go get ramen after work just by walking over.  A ramen-a-torium is that close.

Ramen + gyoza + chicken katsu.

While I was finishing up, this song came on the radio at the ramen place, and that's when I realized this had all been an elaborate set up.  See, earlier in the day, I'd sent Julie this parody of that song.

The worst part of this whole situation is that I didn't see any of it coming.

• Everyone was talking about ramen today.
• Wait, what?
• You should be fired, you jerk.
• That sucks.  I guess this means that when I order things from amazon, I'll just wait longer in between orders until things pile up.
• This looks interesting (but I haven't watched it yet, so I don't know).
• Huh.  Well, I have all the episodes shown so far on my DVR.  Because I haven't watched any yet.  I didn't hear any great buzz about it, so I never had the push to go see what's up with it.  Maybe I'll have to catch up this weekend.  One more note: I thought I heard that they were banned from using well known characters due to some other pre-existing contract issue.  I wonder if that's another reason it wasn't very well received.
• I like the last panel, where Kara's using her legs to hold the bucket of candy in her lap so she can look through it.  While flying along, because she doesn't actually need to walk.
• I upgraded things today to get something else working, which forced a google-chrome update, which means I have this ugly ass bug to deal with.  "What's wrong?"  The tab font and the bookmark-bar font are identical, and the same size.  Conveniently, this font also matches my default page body font as well.  Now, in between the two is the url bar in a font twice as large, with different serifs, and at a completely different weight.  The goal of UI should be to use as few fonts as possible in one view.  Breaking this concept, and then marking it as "wontfix" because you have more important things to do is a shitty move.  Not only that, given the 21 other bugs you had to merge into this one, wouldn't it have been better to simply fix what people didn't like just to shut them up?

Tuesday: Day 900 of teh dethh

It seems that the tides of the battle have shifted, as I seem to have largely defeated opposition in the lungs and ears.  There's an entrenched group sticking it out in my right ear, but they're clearly out gunned and under supplied.  My disease assassins freedom-fighters have worked well in the past 24 hours, breaking the enemy's lines of defense quite solidly.

However, this has led those dastardly foes to switch to the use of vengeance weapons, where they no longer care about winning and just want to cause as much destruction as possible.  They've rolled out what must be their worst tool ever invented: the sinus headache.  It is truly an insidious thing, forged in the pits of hell itself. Move too fast? Searing pain throughout your skull.  Cough? Searing pain throughout your skull.  Blow your nose? Searing pain throughout your skull.  Bend over to pick something up? Searing pain throughout your skull.  Even Captain Reginald "Ace" Taminophen and his squadron of pain killers can only manage a slight advantage against such nefarious tactics.  My hope is that Admiral Dip "Hen" Hydramine can use his multi-tactic battleship to keep those symptoms down overnight.

Clearly, this guy is the Lion King.

Here's a video from Russia.  In which a bear tries to talk to one guy, who panics, while another guy watches, not caring at all.

• Read this story and see if you came up with the same "wait, what?" moment that I did.
• I've mentioned these before, but they're still a great idea, so I'm doing so again.
• Poor bear. :(
• This is fucking bullshit.  How can killing someone be valid "standing your ground," but scaring an admitted abuser away be "aggravated assault with a deadly weapon."  Also: deliberating for 12 minutes suggests that the jury didn't really give a damn about things.
• This squirrel is messy and cute.  That helps, but can't solve all problems.