BYOND Life

Music and People

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:42:42 GMT

It seems to me that a good number of people don't understand their favorite songs. They just like the way it sounds and suddenly they are oblivious to what the lyrics actually mean.

For example, I like Mr. Brightside by The Killers. A song about a girl who is sleeping with someone else while the singer laments about his jealousy. I've met at least a half dozen girls who say that the song reminds them of their boyfriends.

Now, this should mean that either the girl was sleeping around or their boyfriend was sleeping around. You'd think that this would drive them to not like the song. But in the end, they just like the way it sounds and rationalise the lyrics in their head. The song is about being jealous, it is as simple as that. But they will toss whatever meaning they want into it and pretend they understand it.

Another example: Choke on This by Senses Fail. A song about a girl who the singer is simply using and has no real care for due to his past heartaches. A good song, but again I find girls saying their boyfriends picked it as their song. Yes, a song that starts "Half-smoked cigarettes and you're the trash that infests my sheets. Can't make a wife out of a whore, don't want your skin on me." That is one hell of a song to base your relationship on. Especially when it gets to the lyric, "Blow your brains out on me." Aw, isn't that a sweet song for your beau?

There are all sorts of songs that have people talking about how great it is while they don't understand it. Yes, some songs are meant to be cryptic, but most people don't choose those songs as their favorites. They select a song that the lyrics are clear, but they still misinterpret them. I mean, if you are going to pick a song to share, pick one that doesn't suggest one of you is a massive whore.

However, you likely misinterpreted this post, because the true meaning behind it is something that only those who know me will figure out. Mwahaha... meh, really I was just bored.

Ten Helpful Driving Tips

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:30:40 GMT

I drive enough to where I have made promises to kill about 212 people that I have seen on the road. But instead of adding to that tally, I shall offer some helpful tips.

1. Speed limits aren't math problems. If you see a sign that says 25, that doesn't mean go 2+5. You'd be surprised how many people seem to think this is the case.

2. Turning signals were put on cars for a reason. Use them, we don't know what you're doing. If you see someone waiting at a stop sign for you to pass and you are turning, its helpful to not leave them guessing until they have no chance to pull out until another break in traffic.

3. If you are coming to a red light and are going straight while in the right(left everywhere else) lane, check behind you. If someone is turning and you have room to switch lanes, do it. Some people don't feel like waiting five minutes behind you just so they can drive 8 feet once you get out of their way.

4. Fog lights are called "fog" lights for a reason. They aren't "heavily-lit-city" lights. Some of us like having our corneas intact when we are driving.

5. Listen to whatever music you want, but let us listen to the music we want. I've been in cars with the music blasting at these levels. When all you hear is the rupturing of your eardrums, that is too loud.

6. When you pull up next to someone who is waiting for a break in traffic, don't block their line of sight. We'd appreciate it if we could see whether or not pulling forwards will kill us.

7. If you are driving down a busy road and miss your turn, don't slam on your breaks. As a matter of fact, if you freaking pay attention, you probably won't miss your turn as much.

8. If you need glasses to see, then wear them while driving. From what I understand, sight is kind of important when you drive.

9. At night, turn your lights on. I know that most people do this, but some people don't when they have done something illegal. They figure it will keep the cops from catching them. Hey, if you're driving down the street at night with your lights off, a cop WILL pull you over if they see you. If you're gonna do something stupid, do it intelligently.

10. Don't drive. Seriously, just don't do it.

The internet died?

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:06:24 GMT

BYOND appears to have gone down, as well as my web hosting company. Something odd is happening. Oh no, its Y2K8!!!

Everyone connect to byond://69.59.191.178:3250

Possible Permament Disbarment for JT

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:10:49 GMT

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/07/09/ breaking-disbar-jack-thompson-forever-bar-trial-referee-says

...

This is a great day.

Things I Love

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:58:22 GMT

People who pull up too far ahead at a stop sign so you can't see around them even though you have been waiting there longer.
People who park in the far right of a parking space so you get to climb in through the passenger side.
People who make claims about the evils of entertainment while showing blind ignorance about the entire subject, and those who allow them to pass laws based on these falicious claims.
Laws that basically make it nearly illegal to even push someone who is stabbing you to death, because that would be assault.
People who legislate morality, not realising that morality is subjective.
The electoral college that says the majority can lose a vote because certain states have more residents. Even if those people don't vote.
Democrats, republicans, centrists, and statists.
The libertarian party. (Oh, I know! We'll nominate a statist republican neo-con! That'll help the cause of personal freedom!)
Warranty work that results in 2+ months of "It'll be a couple more days before it is ready."
People who respond to a post, video, or article by quoting it as if no one else had watched it. Extra love for people who quote it wrong.
That autofelating, narcissistic, liar, Steve Jobs.
Anything with 'i' as the first letter in the title.
Political correctness.
The Patriot Act.
The FCC.
People who use the term 'lol' as a regular verb.
People who pronounce 'lol'.
People who use 'lol' outside of the internet.
When you're typing a long post, the copying function of your download comes up, and it registers your keystroke as a cancel command.
When you have less than 10 seconds to ctrl+alt+del out of a program and set its affinity to a single cpu before it crashes.
When someone who borrowed your dress shoes goes to prison for five years, leaving you without your dress shoes.
Vista.
Cliffhangers in games. Sure, I paid 60 bucks for this, why should I get any sort of resolution for the ending?
Developers who don't realise that is one of the reasons people are so jaded when it comes to buying games, often opting to download them via torrent instead.
People who speculate about economic issues, which causes the economy to go haywire.
And all the other things that will one day cause me to jump off the top floor of a tall, tall building.

I'm Torn

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:08:34 GMT

Down here in the wang state, we have a new law that began this morning. The law is commonly called the 'Bring Your Guns to Work' law by its detractors. Thats pretty descriptive so you get the basic idea. For those of you thicker than the fog of Silent Hill, and to expand, I'll explain.

The law gives people in Florida, with concealed carry permits, to keep a gun in their locked car at their workplace.

Now, I'm for it on second amendment grounds. But I'm against it because it forces businesses to allow it. That'd be yet another government regulation on privately owned businesses. It assumes control over how a business is run, but it affirms someones right to protect themselves.

This issue is making my skull throb.

As you can likely guess, there is more than a little uproar about it. But they're all pissed off because they hate guns in the first place, so they are against it for the wrong reasons. I hate guns too, but thats because I like archery.

The argument they use is: 'It could send the wrong message to disgruntled employees.' Oh, it could? I always thought that you had to prove your mental capacity to get a concealed carry permit, showing that you aren't going to walk around pretending to be Billy the Kid.

Now, back to my moral dilemma. A business is like a home, the owner sets the rules. If one of my friends tells me they don't want me bringing a gun on their property, I wouldn't. So, I guess the best way for this law to work would be if it was rewritten to allow businesses to choose whether or not to allow guns onto the property. But in that case the law might as well be thrown out. If someone wants to keep their gun in their car, they can park somewhere else.

Alright, so I guess I'm against it for the sake of keeping the government out of telliong people how to run their businesses. Hope you enjoyed taking this little trip with me.

(Guns will always be in the hands of criminals, so don't bother arguing about gun laws. Criminals don't follow laws, thats why they are criminals. Besides, this is about law abiding citizens. Besides, the second amendment is mostly there so we can revolt if the government does... well what it is doing now... well damn, did I miss the revolution?)

Six Years on BYOND

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:27:40 GMT

Today is my six year anniversary on BYOND. So, how better to celebrate than by showing a badly conceptualised comic from BYOND Life?

I would make a joke about Tom oweing me an anniversary present, but the sixth year is the wood anniversary, and I wouldn't feel comfortable asking a man for wood.

BL has a forum now.

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:45:14 GMT

There, I decided to use phpbb to make a forum for the BYOND Life main site.

http://byondlife.com/forum/

Television is evil.

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:39:24 GMT

Alright, so I'm watching Family Guy on TBS (I don't remember why, likely nothing else was on.) and halfway through the show I see Bill Engvall walk out. I begin to roll my eyes at yet another popup ad on television. Then the most curious thing happens, the show is paused so he can promote his show.

Thats right, they paused in the middle of a scene to plug another show.

The worst part is while reading up on the phenomenon, I found they've been doing this for a while. They wonder why we turn to internet viewing and then they pull this. It was bad enough when it was just covering up the bottom of the screen and making a little noise, hell it was bad enough when they were silent. We have commercial breaks and product placement for a reason.

When you alienate your audience, that is the complete opposite of the point of advertising. What's next? Is the Hulk going to punch through my screen during a local news story about a murderer who kills geeks with brown hair while they watch TV?

Right now I'm watching Castaway on TNT, in the lower right hand corner is their stations watermark, and in the lower left is the phrase "MORE MOVIE... LESS COMMERCIALS". So far I've seen 4 commercials for the closer while the movie is playing, so much for that and oh god he knocked his tooth out, I hate that part.

Here are some ideas I have:

1: Don't constantly show your stations watermark, maybe show them once as a bumper at the beginning of the show.

2: With digital TV as the norm, allow viewers to decide if they want to display the rating. Personally, as a grown adult I don't care what the rating of a show may be.

3: Stop with the animated voiced popup ads, they drive viewers away from the shows. Just like on the internet. Why do you think popup blockers became prevalent as automatically installed?

4: Never, ever, under any circumstance pause in the middle of a show to advertise another show. This is beyond wrong. Besides, most of the time we are *PAYING TO HAVE YOUR STATION*. You already make hundreds of millions off of just the regular advertisements, just how fucking greedy are you?

Ahem, anyways, since I know no television execs are going to read this, I'll just stop listing ideas.

I'm in love.

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:07:34 GMT

Ahh, yet another day of work out of the way. I arrive home today and enter through the back door as per usual. I water my cantaloupes (that's not innuendo), and check my mail. But as I go outside, I see a large box on the front porch. It was my new computer case.

http://www.xoxide.com/moneual-lab-m550f25-case.html

The best part? It has that giant 250mm fan built right into the side, yet I still got an extra 120mm fan for the back. I plan on getting another 120mm fan for the front, then my computer will struggle to get above 20C. After that, all I need to do is get this beast:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ item-details.asp?EdpNo=2700093&CatId=2535