Remember When?

I remember there was a time when I wanted to re-experience something so badly, but I had to wait for it (media-wise). In high school, I'd seen an episode of Animaniacs where The Brain had a song for the various parts of the human brain. I'd told my Anatomy and Physiology teacher, Mrs Getz, about it and she'd wanted me to bring it in.

Yet, it took the episode forever to cycle though and repeat!

I did end up promising I'd make her a copy, but yet never ended up doing so. I have a VHS tape that may still have it.

Early in iOS Game Center history there was a game called Flight Control Rocket, and I'd always wanted the Shop theme. No one had it, though, and it's just today with the screen record feature and YouTube that I now have it. I just need to strip out the audio and voilà. Another game, DragonVale, I'd had a similar want with some of the Hallowe'en music.

Now I have the set.

Imagine, now all of this is so easy. The only restriction is what tools you have to make it possible.

The future is nigh.

Nametag It

It's not the first time I've wondered, but I've been wondering when television commercial producers had decided to start putting nametags visibly on their characters, or even giving the characters names in-commercial (like Maxwell the Pig).

The first one I really remember paying attention to is Annie from Popeye's Louisiana Chicken, and from there it's been everything from Matt of Carmax to these new commercials (of I forget which car company) where they have splash screens of the characters' names when they've completed the obstacle course of supposed "hard customers".

This comes to me because, partly, I wear a nametag at work and partly because I – based on apparent work standards – have to "introduce" myself to every customer. I can't help wondering if this is a change that had occurred — if at all — around the same time commercial characters started getting names. I can sort of get it as far as those characters go, since, I suppose, those that do have names are in a sequence of commercials either in format or in "storyline".

Logically, it's begun to make sense for me too, the self-introduction (though it's so intensely contrary to my self-effacingness most of the time): when you come back, you know me as more than just the ugly, big-headed, Spanish-speaking burnt-Black dude in glasses. At the same time, the vast majority of the people I deal with don't (seem to) come back due to their being transient, or if they do it's either I've not dealt with them sequentially or I've just forgotten them completely.

I suppose it's partly an exercise to get me to like myself more. Who knows?

Welcome: my name is Kris and I'm here to assist you today.

Singles Awareness?

Something I see on message boards and hear every now and then is some people grousing about why guys and girls constantly complain they don't have boyfriends and girlfriends. They should be happy with being single, that it shouldn't be a great concern.

I think it's not as easy as they say.  Just now I'd seen a Georgia Power commercial featuring a father, mother, and kids. The news I watch constantly has advisories for people with families, or ways that husbands can do things for their wives or vice-versa. Gun rights activists talk about protecting your families.

Certainly, it shouldn't be an all-out focus for people. If you're single, it shouldn't be your life's focus to get a partner, but this world does remind singles there aren't many arenas for them.

"God didn't mean for us to be alone."

Poof! Next `Harry Potter' flick moves to summer

Yahoo! News: Oh no! And a mass of people would've still gone to see it! Darn profit-mongers.

TASER patent: ‘Don’t tase me, bro’ situations soon to be simultaneously shot on video

DVICE: Wow... TASERCam. That's mildly humourous.

Jobless lorry driver 'sold' The Ritz hotel to businessman in £250million con

The Daily Mail:
"When businessman Terry Collins was offered the chance to buy the Ritz Hotel for a knockdown price of £250million it was an opportunity that sounded too good to be true.
And it was indeed too good to be true. The hotel, with an estimated market value of around £600million, was not on the market.
Yet two conmen managed to persuade Mr Collins, co-founder of a large and reputable property company, that the hotel's owners, the Barclay brothers, were prepared to sell it at a bargain price."

Now, I'm not one to arbitrarily post something from The Daily Mail, especially since it's not the most worthy piece of news media on this planet... However, I'd originally seen this on one of the hospitality news sources to which I subscribe, and thought, "Oh, well they're a little more reputable, so I suppose it can't be all that bad." I'm not really certain in the figures TDM quote as being what these con artists had spent, as well as on what they'd spent the sum they'd philandered, but it was rather TMZ-like of them, anyway.

Still, I think this businessman should've researched his investment's worth a little more throughly before putting down the pounds, which, if he wins back, will probably be reallocated to legal fees anyway.