Posts Tagged ‘sucks’
Everything You Need To Know About Economics
If I want to graduate on time and receive both my Electrical Engineering and Computer Science degrees, which I do, my school forces me to pay up and take a summer course completely unrelated to my major, which I am. Thus, I’m stuck in the night-class purgatory that is microeconomics. I’ve had three classes so far and am fairly sure that I have learned everything there is to know about economics. If you, for some demented reason, want to enter this strange field, here is all you need to know:
- A fourth grade level understanding of mathematics. Seems those three semesters of Calculus were all for naught, at least in economics. Here is a comprehensive list of all the mathematical concepts I have used in this course: averaging two numbers, the point-slope formula, solving a simple single variable algebraic equation, and percent difference.
- Supply and demand. High supply and low demand mean low prices; low supply and high demand mean high prices. Or something like that. There’s other factors, but we’re not supposed to consider them because we’d have to solve equations with more than one variable. Gasp!
- Profit is total revenue minus total cost. If reading this made you feel enlightened, then you have a promising career projecting the future of the national economy on MSNBC.
- Those cheeseburger-flavored Doritos are kinda neat the first time, but get really gross really fast. High-level stuff, I know.
- Please let me integrate something before I lose my mind. My brain is melting.
So, in short, if you are not at all mathematically inclined and want a big fancy piece of paper saying how special you are, economics is for you. Hopefully, I’ll survive until the fall semester, when Physics 3 and Probability will have a chance to revive my dead brain cells.
Also, totally unrelated, but you should keep your eyes peeled for this sweet game that’s emerging very soon from the creative womb of my good friend and coworker, Igor Hardy.
Sequels that suck
- Star Wars Prequels
- Two Towers
- Halo 3
- Spider-Man 3
- Batman and Robin
- Rocky Balboa
- Terminator 3
- Pirates 2 and 3
- Guitar Hero World Tour
- Sonic games made after 1994
New article by me on Hardydev about a crappy game that I hated. Let’s just say I had more fun skewering it than playing it. Another one that, in case you hadn’t already figured out, was an April Fool’s joke.
Dentists. Friggin’ Dentists.
Dentists
It’s a well-known fact that all dentists are completely evil. This is never more clear than once every six months when I go in for my appointment. I seriously think they have it in for me because I don’t floss enough. They started off by hooking me up to the whirling X-ray machine of doom and bombarded my mouth with high-frequency electromagnetic radiation. Afterwards, they strapped me in a very uncomfortable chair in an extremely bright room and started taking pictures of the insides of my mouth, presumably to sell to some perverted teeth fetishists on the internet. It was at this point I realized that I was now at the mercies of a woman who clearly believes in “no pain no gain,” perhaps a little too much. As she tore into my gums, she began interrogating me, well aware of the fact that my mouth was busy being assaulted by her sharp implements of terror.
After a jolly good while of this, she decided to mix things up by smearing poor tasting goop in and around my mouth with a mechanical sander, pausing every so often to inject heavily fluorinated water into my increasingly uncomfortable mouth. She wasn’t particularly good at this bit, so half the water ended up bouncing into my upward-facing eyes. When she grew board of drowning me, she stuck a little vacuum tube in my mouth and told me with terrible smugness to swish, as if she knew I wanted to spew the vile mixture in her big, stupid face. After that, the head dentist came in and told me my teeth looked fine. So then I went home.
Games
In completely and totally unrelated news, them ol’ vidya-games are still up to no good. I’ve pretty much decided that Dragon Age isn’t my thing, but I might give it another shot after a cooling off period. I bought Call of Duty: World at War for the deceptively low price of $20. You might think that I say $20 is “deceptive” because the game was really worth much more, but you would be wrong. It was deceptive in the way that it convinced me to buy a wholly mediocre game with AI on the level of Pong. I still can’t stop playing Mass Effect 2, I got back on the horse with Bioshock, and I bought some new songs for Rock Band, so all-in-all a good bunch.
Movies
Recently, I’ve been watching the movies people accost me for having ignored. With movies like Alien(s), No Country for Old Men, and In Bruges, they are completely right. With Avatar, they are dead wrong. Something about that movie just bugs me, and the more I think about it, the more I want to stab James Cameron in the throat with cattle prod. I’m not sure where he went wrong. Aliens rocked, Avatar sucked, but why? As usual, I choose to blame CGI, something that they had significantly less of in 1986. I don’t care how detailed the digital models are or how expensive the motion capture was, the Na’vi look computer generated and no amount of lens flares will get them out of the uncanny valley. I also choose to blame 3D and the massive headache it gave me.
TV
Aw, who am I kidding? The only TV show I ever watch is Lost, which is slogging its way through its sixth season. The show has taken a significant dip in quality this time around, not to be confused with the dip last season, or the dip in season three. I’m beginning to lose faith in what I once thought was the greatest show in the history of shows, since no season has yet to live up to the awesomeness of the first. The writers have definitely realized that they can just make crap up and no one will call them out on it, so the questions created to questions answered ratio is hovering around 3.5. They don’t have long to wrap everything up, so they best be kicking into solvey-solvey mode pretty soon. And why the hell do they keep getting rid of all the black characters? Michael, Walt, Mr. Eko, Justin, they’re all suspiciously gone. Just sayin’.
Nolan North
I’ve got a beef with Nolan North.
Everyone needs a celebrity beef. Loading Ready Run had one going with Uwe Boll for a while and I have friend who loathes Dane Cook with all his being. Why not, I figured. North does have the most ubiquitous and generic voice in gaming. I mean pick any of the dozens of characters he’s voiced and chances are they’ll be essentially the same smug American douche. For example, Shadow Complex would’ve been a much better game if I could have enjoyed the Metroidvania exploration without Nolan constantly cracking wise through his characterless avatar. I vote that instead of hiring Mr. North to voice their cocky, brown-haired prick, studios should seek the vocal talents of Sir Sean Connery. I could just imagine Nathan Drake speaking with the same voice as James Bond.
So, in short, Nolan North sucks hard.
New HardyDev articles, one about the best AGS games of ’09, and one reviewing Danny Dread is On Call.
Grab Bag
Let’s have some structure:
- Video games: I recently beat Mass Effect, and let me say that it is definitely one of the best games I’ve ever played. It gives COD4 a run for its money as my favorite Xbox game. Sure, it has a lot of flaws (annoying inventory system, the MAKO vehicle, Unreal engine 3), but it more than makes up for them with an incredible story, truly lovable characters, the best dialog system I’ve ever encountered, and more than tolerable combat. Go buy it now. Other games I’ve been playing recently: Left 4 Dead 2, Saints Row 2, Spider-Man 2, and Modern Warfare 2 (see a pattern?). All of them are really good, but none of them are quite as epic as Mass Effect. I’m planning on getting the collector’s edition (EDIT: For the sequel in January, that is), which is something I’ve never done.
- Computer problems: If you’ve read my twitter in the past two weeks or heard my screams of anguish (audible radius: 2000 km), you’ll no doubt know that my computer is friggin’ screwed up. I have nearly exhausted my options for fixing it, but I don’t think it’s too late yet. After some preparation, I plan to back up all my essential stuff twice, including app licenses, and do a complete format and reinstall. I’m probably going to end up doing this for both my Mac and Windows partition, so I’m going to use this opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7 and increase the size of my Boot Camp partition. I honestly don’t know why I’m upgrading, since the last 3 times I’ve upgraded my computers I’ve wrought nothing but sorrows.
- Christmas: I hate Christmas music. I like Christmas, but I hate the music more than anything. Other things I hate more than anything include the cold, rain, final exams, and media whores. Why I’m in Memphis during the winter and why I still have yahoo.com bookmarked is beyond me. But once again breaking my own rule of never announcing anything until it’s done, I have plans for literally 9 different thing for my holiday break. Instead of breaking my rule outright, I’ll just bend it a little by giving the first letter of each: M, C, A, K, F, T, P, S, and B. Guess away.
Itsy-bitsy, tiny little things I hate
I’ve never really been called picky before; I’ll eat almost anything and try to give new things a shot. What I have been called is petty. Even if I try something, I’m always quick to point out the smallest imperfections that taint it. The one area in which I am the pettiest is video games. Some examples…
- I can’t stand unskippable company logos when I start a game. Mass Effect and Gears of War 2 both suffer from this. Sometimes, I just want to jump in and play, which brings me to my next point…
- Little/No/Difficult continuing playability in sandbox games. After you beat one, you should be able to go back and mess around in the big, open world fairly easily. One example of a game that messes this up is Assassin’s Creed. After you beat the game, if you still want to parade around slitting throats, you have to listen to your master’s old spiel again, which was boring enough the first time, but becomes exponentially so each time you have to watch it.
- Pickiness about what constitutes “Start” in the main menu. This one’s really petty, but for so long, I’ve been used to being able to press A to move to the next page of the title screen and instead having to press the actual Start button seems stupid. Incidentally, Mass Effect and GoW2 both feature this quirk as well, which leads me to deduce that these two games are planning my murder.
- Not pausing after saving. Again, Mass Effect does this, as well as Bioshock. I know it’s sort of a compromise between the regular save of most console games and PC’s quicksave, but I would like a little confirmation in between saving my game and returning to being maimed so I don’t have to immediately load back because I was unprepared.
That’s it.
Countries that Suck
Sucks!
- France: Obvious
- Mexico: Dirty
- USA: Jerks
- China: Full
- Greenland: Cold
- Japan: Craaazaaay
- Libia: Hot
- Brazil: Wet
According to @yomcat . . .
I shouldn’t be nice anymore. Quoth he, “You’ve lost the magic touch.” So no more of that! What kind of person would I be if I didn’t pander to my maths-obsessed readers from New Zealand? Tell ya what, here’s a sucks grab bag!
- Auckland
- Texting
- Graduation Ceremonies
- Australia
- Jonas Brothers
- Vuze Customer Support
- Slow couriers
- First years
- Wolfram|Alpha
Pander pander pander. I am your slave monkey, you crazy kiwi.
</SARCASM>
A Movie, A Video Game, A Web Site, and A Restaurant That Do NOT Suck
I’ve obviously got plenty of bad things to say about stuff, but what about the good? I mean, obviously not everything sucks, or else there’d be nothing to compare it to and we’d have no Vantage Point (tee hee) on its quality at all. So to combat the recent trend of pro-negativity in culture, allow me to provide an example from each of the classes I have torn apart in my sucks series that stands out, not for its foulness, but for its amazing ability to please me and just about no one else.
Life of Brian
No matter what yomcat says, this is currently my favorite film. I just find it funny enough to warrant audible guffaws, sometimes accompanied by tumbles on the ground.
Runner up: The Dark Knight
Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door
I honestly can’t see any other game replacing this as my favorite. I could go on and on about the clever humor, the genuinely intriguing characters, the marvelous story, the impeccable level design, the sheer immersion, and… oops, I guess I just did go on.
Runner up: Half-Life 2
Qwantz.com
I really love Dinosaur Comics. A lot. I guess I just like humorous writing combined with the efficiency of comic format. Of course, I don’t know if it really qualifies for this section. If it did, then I probably should have put Ctrl-Alt-Del on the sucks list. So for the tie,
Not Always Right
Call me smug for feeling superior to the customers featured on this site for my high IQ and ability to read, but I never get tired of stories about people trying to fax cash.
Runner up #1: Something Awful
Runner up #2: MacHeist
Texas de Brazil
Ohmygoodnessohmygoodness. I cannot overstate how incredible this restaurant is. Seriously, I’ll try. “Texas de Brazil is the most frequently prescribed treatment for erectile dysfunction and regularly brings Chuck Norris to tears.” Still not enough to describe how great all-you-can-eat best-meat-of-your-life is.
Runner up: Charlie’s Restaurant in Hilton Head, SC for some damn good Cobia.
Congratulations to all the winners, make sure you pick up your complementary gift baskets on the way out.
Restaurants that Suck
It’s not like I need to explain how this works anymore. So without further ado, here’s…
RESTAURANTS THAT SUCK:
- Taco Bell
- McDonalds
- Starbucks
- Outback
- Waffle House
- Applebee’s
- Huey’s // The last time I ate there, I threw up afterwords. That was six years ago.
- Back Yard Burger
- Cheeburger Cheeburger
- Barnhill’s Buffet
- Fazoli’s
I’m really not that picky. I just trust my stomach, which tends to reject crap food like Big Macs.
Vantage Point Sucks Hard
Alright. This film is terrible. I might go as far as to say it sucks hard.
Okay, some perspective. I watched this movie in a noisy hotel room with a bunch of other people. It was part of a little pay-per-view double feature with Jumper, and though I don’t remember which one we saw first, I know that somehow Hayden Christensen, Prince of Bland, outperformed this film’s entire cast.
So, VANTAGE POINT. Why does it suck so hard? I would ask the audience to turn their attention to the following hint.
The Guilty Parties
I don’t really remember anyone else besides these guys and Sigourney Weaver, but she was only in it for ten minutes anyway. If you don’t recognize these three puzzled men, allow me to enlighten you. From left to right, Forrest Whittaker, Dennis Quaid, and Matthew Fox, or, judging by their expressions, a very tan Thom Yorke, John McCain, and a mentally-handicapped badger. You might know them from Battlefield Earth, Jaws 3-D, and the picture above, respectively. In this film, they all play douchebags who can’t act. None of their lines were believable, memorable, or compelling. Maybe if they had been, I would have remembered the plot a little better.
But why would I want to remember that? It’s illogical, poorly written, and executed worse than Jack Sparrow was at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean. Basically, the gimmick is that the movie gives you 20 minute or so peep shows of the obese, 47-year-old, male stripper that, in this sentence, represents the story. Adding to the gimmickiness is the fact that the movie presents these peaks from different characters’ points of view, hence the title. While it sounded like a good idea when I first watched the trailer, the sudden changes of perspective ended up being the biggest ripoff moments in the film. You see, every time Vantage Point decides you’ve seen enough semi-congruous story for now, it quickly rewinds back to the beginning, and these were the points when everyone in the room screamed and moaned and started throwing objects at the TV. The pacing is just terrible. Just when you think some interesting development is about to unfold, ZIP!, right back to the start. The film is in serious need of some Ritalin. And if … writer “Barry Levy” thinks that these jerks are just good ol’ fun-loving cliffhangers, he can have his name taken off the IMDb page where I found it. They don’t build up to a big reveal at the end, nor do they provide enough satisfaction through hints or clues to make up for the massive disappointment that follows. The last “big reveal,” especially so. It was so momentous and surprising that I stay awake at night thinking about how awesome it was and how I’ll never post spoilers on the internet saying that the terrorists did it and I think Matthew Fox helped somehow. That being said, it’s basically a big load of bull crap being shoved through your eyes and ears.
Don't you believe me? Don't you?
One thing I must comment on, though, is the big final chase sequence, or at least one version, which by the sixth time lost most of its energy. Dennis Quaid’s character evidences the sheer amount of effort that went into writing the lines for his car chase. For about the last nine minutes, this is the entirety of the dialog…
[Bunch of explosions with cars and stuff]
Dennis Quaid: “Shit!”
[Bullets whizzing by, Arabs staring menacinly]
Dennis Quaid: “Shit!”
Matthew Fox: “Shit!”
[Shots of people important enough to warrant a vantage point, but not important enough for me to remember their names]
Dennis Quaid: “Shit!”
Dennis Quaid: “Shit!”
Sigourney Weaver: “Shit!”
[Car wreck]
Dennis Quaid: “Why the fuck did you do that?”
Arab: “No speaks English!”
Dennis Quaid: “Shit!”
[Credits]
So that’s Vantage Point, and it officially
Sucks 3 – Web Sites
Okay, it’s fun to make fun of things, hence the phrasing, and it’s also fun to be able to do so without any justification for your assertions. Hence the recent line of “Things that Suck” posts by myself and yomcat. And while the liberation from normal requirements of proof is quite thrilling, I think sometimes these sorts of things need a little backing up. So though in this update, “Web Sites that Suck,” I will be posting in the usual evidence-less manner, an upcoming Sucks will actually be a Sucks Hard, where I will elaborate on one of my choices from the first three. And damned if I didn’t just break my promise about not promising stuff. Sue me.
Web Sites That Suck
- I Can Has Cheezburger
- Yahoo!
- Access Hollywood Dot Com // Almost certain proof that America is FUBAR
- Myspace
- Xanga
- Perez Hilton Dot Com
- Twitter Dot Com’s Trending Topics and The People Who Post Them
- DeviantArt // With a few personal exceptions
- Craigslist
- WebCT AKA Blackboard // If you want to make sure your assignments don’t get turned in.
- Any and All Furry/Teen/White Supremacy/Gothic/Jonas Brothers/Webcomic Fan Forums. // Even for good webcomics! It’s uncanny, like the more hardcore a fan one is of something, the more likely one will join a forum dedicated to the appreciation of said something, and, further, the more likely one is a complete and total basket case.
And of course, The Site Which Shall Not Be Named And Does Not Even Deserve A Friggin’ Number Because It Sucks So Dang Much And I Do Hope You Know Which One I Am Talking About Yes That One.
I suck at finishing things.
It’s true.
And from now on, I’ve decided to stop announcing things. It seems every time I get what I think is a bright new idea, I have to go and blab about it on the the internet or to my friends or to the union of those two sets. See the following Venn Diagram…
Therefore, effective immediately, I will stop announcing new projects and focus all my efforts on completing the ones I’ve started. And on work. And school.
Video Games That Suck
Disclaimer: I’ve only owned a Gamecube, Gameboy Color, GBA, XBox 360, Mac, and PC, so this list is kinda limited by excluding the Wii. I have played these all.
- Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GCN)
- Sonic Heroes (GCN)
- Wario Land 3 (GBC)
- Gears of War (360)
- Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 (GBA)
- Mall Tycoon 2 (PC)
Most of these games, I’m viewing retrospectively. The Sonic games are the ones that actually made me revise my standards. I remember playing through them and actually thinking, “Wow. These games suck. The level design is atrocious, the characters are more annoying than having Nick Jonas duct taped to your back, the soundtrack is lame, the controls are unresponsive, and the story can move to Siberia and die a cold, lonely death for all I care.” After that, I stopped buying crappy games.
Okay, I admit, I didn’t actually think that, as Nick Jonas didn’t exist yet. Sue me.
My Own Movies That Suck
In response to yomcat’s list, I have decided to compile my very own list of movies that should be beat to a bloody pulp with a dead cat.
- The Butterfly Effect
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Evan Almighty
- Spider-Man 3
- Star Wars Episodes I & II, and slightly less, III
- The Incredible Hulk
- Get Smart
- National Treasure I and II
- Vantage Point (starring Dennis Quaid, by the way)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
- That’s all I can think of that I’ve seen.
