KyleBits » Kyle

A Few Mythologies

Kyle — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 23:13:48 +0000

Scientology mythology: Seventy-five million years ago, an alien named Xenu brought billions of his people to Earth on a DC-8, put them next to a volcano, and killed them with hydrogen bombs.
Analysis: L. Ron Hubbard was batshit crazy.

Greek Mythology: Around 4000 years ago, an immortal, long-haired and bearded, God named Zeus used disguises to trick mortals into having sex with him, and had many famous mortal children. These children did various things that changed the course of history.
Analysis: Ancient Greeks were wacky.

Roman Mythology: Everything those wacky Greeks said? All true. But, the names of the various Gods have been changed, presumably to be easier to pronounce in Latin.
Analysis: Crazy stuff, but at least we got cool names for our planets.

Christian Mythology: Around 2000 years ago, an all powerful, long-haired and bearded, God had a child with a mortal woman. The child was mortal and lived with his mom, but once he died, he went to live with his dad and became immortal. All will be right in the world, as long as we believe in him.
Analysis: That totally happened.

So, yeah… so much for that.

Kyle — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:42:40 +0000

I’m sure you know this, reader, since the only flippin’ reason you’d be here is that you know me, but personal blogs are about posting shit that happens… and shit happens. So, yeah, today my divorce is final.

Not really much more to say on the topic. Today closes the book on a period of my life that started out with a bang, made me pretty damn happy for a short period of time, then became a slow burn of frustration that turned into a Very Bad Time™ for me.

Onward and upward …

So it begins

Kyle — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:37:41 +0000

Since this blog is pretty much only read by family, everyone that reads it knows by now, things have been a little tough between me and Beckie of late. Finally, on Monday November 15th, I made the tough decision that I simply needed out of the marriage. I spoke to an attorney on the 17th, who filed a simple petition for divorce on Friday the 19th.

The original post that was here, outlining the ridiculousness of her counter-petition, has been removed. It served its purpose. She stopped being such an ass, and became much more reasonable about splitting up our property. In the end, it’s going to cost me more money than it should, but we should be able to get the divorce over with in a reasonable amount of time.

Pool results

Kyle — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:53:35 +0000

Last nights pool winners …
1Q – Mike
2Q – Lois
3Q – Annette
Final – Bob G

Congrats, ya lucky bastards.

Bocce Trophy

Kyle — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:51:32 +0000

We were talking yesterday about how we’ve never documented who has won the Super Bowl Bocce Trophy over the years… so, here’s an attempt. Unfortunately, there’s usually a great deal of beer involved, so our memories are, shall we say, imperfect.

2010 — Jimmy and Dale
2009 — Jeff and Kyle
2008 — Jeff and Kyle
2007 — Jimmy and Warren
2006 — Rick and Dick
2005 — Rick and Dick
2004 — Jimmy and Malcolm

1998 — Jeff and Kyle

1992 — Jeff and Bonnie

The End of an Era

Kyle — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:03:40 +0000

I’ve had kylebits.com as my personal domain for a long time now, but prior to having it, I had prion.com pretty much forever. Well, no longer. I’ve just agreed to sell prion.com to the owners of prion.de. So, if you are still using my prion.com email address, now’s the time to switch to kylebits.com!

Ads in Games

Kyle — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:53:26 +0000

I’ve gotten used to subtle ad placements in games… things like real products being advertised on billboards in a racing game. Things you notice but they’re not distracting. I thought it was a little bit money-grubbing (hey, I *paid* you for this game), but I didn’t mind so much.

Today, I fired up EA’s Fight Night 4 on the XBox and saw something that hadn’t been there previously. During one of the transition screens (while a ring/fighter was being loaded) there was a blatant ad. Right there above the spot where they give you gameplay tips, there was an box ad for a movie.

Come on. I paid $60 for this game. Do I really need to see ads too? I paid for the privilege of seeing you be more money hungry? WTF? Ads are for supporting free stuff. That’s why they’re aired on local television stations (which is free), but not HBO (which I pay for).

I put ads on some of my websites (where the content is free) and potentially in the free programs I write for the iPhone, but wouldn’t dream of putting them in the paid programs. If you paid me for a program, you shouldn’t have to see ads. Period.

If this is a trend they plan to continue, this will be my last EA game. There are plenty of other game developers out there happy just to get the $60 for the game, and I’m happy to give it to them.

Incidentally, I’ll be interested to see how the NetNewsWire (NNW) team deals with this problem. They recently released 3.2 beta, for free, and it displays ads. The thing is, they used to have a paid “premium” version that had no ads. Somehow, they’ll need to make sure those paid users aren’t put off by the ads they’re now going to be seeing…

UPDATE: Jesus. I finally got around to fighting that fight (I was so put off by the original ad, I decided to write the blog post first), and now I see they also have ads in between rounds. Fuckers.

For the record, I don’t mind when they put stuff on the mat or the corner padding, etc. Unobtrusive. Fight Night 3 had sponsorhips (“This fight brought to you by Burger King”) and I didn’t mind that. But when you pop up 2 square ads in my face when I’m trying to read something important on the screen (such as how I did in the last round), you’re crossing a line. I did a quick Google search and I’m not the only one. EA are you listening?

Cruisin’

Kyle — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:48:59 +0000

Just got back from a Western Caribbean cruise on Carnival. We visited Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Cozumel. The cruise was good and we all had a good time (Beckie, Katie, Kate’s friend Brittany, and me), but we’re glad to be home. Seven days captive on a ship with limited options for entertaining yourself (and all of them expensive) is quite enough.

There were a hell of a lot of kids on the ship … most of them well behaved, several of them not so much. I found myself wondering if it was legal to punch a 13 year old while in international waters. Some kids just need that. Sadly, it seems more and more kids need that… maybe it’s me getting older, but I think it’s also that parenting skills just disappeared somewhere along the way. I try not to be a “you kids get off my lawn!” kind of guy, but damn.

The capsaicin incident

Kyle — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:30:49 +0000

Note to self: While using capsaicin-based pain creme (similar to Icy-Hot, but using the compound that makes hot peppers spicy) for current back problems, wash hands twice before urinating. Yikes.

Movie remakes

Kyle — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:57:23 +0000

Is it just me, or was “Little Miss Sunshine” basically a remake of “Napoleon Dynamite”? I sat through both movies wondering why I was investing so much time in it, only to have a dance scene at the end redeem the whole thing.