- If you were really a master in the art of conversation you’d have friends – you know, real friends.
- If yours was really a well-respected opinion you wouldn’t need to be on social media networks as much as you are.
- You use the word “engagement” more than you actually engage.
- Of the 9,000+ people following you on Twitter, 14 are real people.
- Of the 14 real people following you on Twitter, 3 are paying attention.
- Your demographic (of 3 people, mind you) consists of:
33% high school students dreaming of working in your “industry”
67% real life shut-ins like yourself - Someday your spouse will figure out that you’re never going to get a real job and leave your ass. Said spouse has already started banging someone else anyway because he/she tired of you and your mid-coitus social media status updates.
- Re-tweeting isn’t thinking for yourself.
- No one gives a fuck, have you not figured this out yet?
- Posting lame “Top 10″ lists on your blog is a sure sign that you’re a fucking loser – confirming the suspicions of everyone around you.
I thought this was a joke, it isn’t…
From the blog of ex-Groupon CEO Andrew Mason:
Obviously Andrew is down with what’s hip with the kids these days. In light of this, I’m composing and recording my own album, Hardly Worth It, about Groupon stock.
9 reasons I am incapable of writing about personal things on the Internet anymore…
I am incapable of writing about personal things on the Internet anymore because…
- …I quit drinking nearly a year and a half ago and my courage came out in my pee.
- …I’m too caught up in all the excitement over this new Star Wars Edge of Darkness 3D movie that’s coming out any minute now.
- …I get three paragraphs in and realize that I don’t remember how to write without relying on a plethora of meaningless descriptors meant to deceive you into thinking my I.Q. is over 100 when in fact I’m mostly just uninteresting.
- …Yahoo sold Geocities, leaving me without a website.
- …someone else already wrote something better about the same topic – proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m not nearly as unique as I thought I was just 10 minutes ago.
- …my parents might read it, now that they know how to find my blog on the Google.
- …Firefox needs to restart and install an update.
- …I read Twitter and now my problems seem trivial in comparison.
- …no one likes to read anymore. But fear not, I have a Pinterest account where I’ve posted pictures of weed.
Review: Toonish Black Cat iPhone 5 Case
And now for something completely different…
It’s really never occurred to me to try a novelty iPhone case. It’s not that I don’t find them interesting; I guess I’ve just never thought of myself as the target market. Then again, given my laundry list of iPhone 5 case misfortunes (read the full sob story here), I’ve been pretty much willing to try anything – so why not take the opportunity to take the Toonish Black Cat iPhone 5 case ($8.00 at EZ Buys Direct) for a spin?
There’s something oddly amusing about being an adult male with a cute cat case. Yes, it screams “hey look at me, I’m an attention-seeker,” there’s no doubt about that. But at the same time, it’s sort of funny to watch people struggle with whether or not to ask you about it. Most don’t, but the few that do seem to get that it’s a gag and all in fun. Obviously if I were a teenager I probably wouldn’t get the same reactions – I’m sure cases like the Toonish Black Cat are common among younger age groups – but still, it’s been an interesting study in peoples’ reactions.
Aesthetically it’s cute, there’s no denying it. It’s so cute in fact that my 15-month old daughter has been relentless in her efforts to acquire the case and call it her own – even though she doesn’t have an iPhone (yet). I consider that a plus, believe it or not; my kid is picky and doesn’t obsess over just anything. Huge points scored there. It’s definitely a hit.
So it’s cute and it’s a little awkward for an adult male to carry around, that’s great; how well does it protect the iPhone 5? The short answer: extremely well.
The Toonish Black Cat case is made of silicone so it’s flexible and easy to secure onto your iPhone. Once fitted, the edges and back of your iPhone 5 are very well protected thanks to the shock-resistant design inside the case (see photo).
Like most silicone iPhone cases, the fit is a little looser around the screen itself, allowing for easy removal; this also means that you’re probably going to want to apply a decent screen protector to your iPhone if you use this case because, while it protects the screen from direct “flat” impact, it isn’t built to prevent a whole lot of screen impact. I can attest to the durability of the Toonish Black Cat case though, my daughter managed to successfully get a hold of my iPhone about a half dozen times while I was testing the case and my iPhone survived each time.
Now for the secondary test: how would my friend Sabrina like the case? Sabrina is sort of like Mikey – that kid from Life cereal. Sabrina will try it; Sabrina will try anything. And she can get away with carrying around a cute cat case a little easier than I can.
SABRINA’S COMMENTS:
Pros:
- It’s cute – I got two compliments on it right away
- It’s lightweight
- I liked the ‘feet’ of the cat – it made it a bit easier to grip
- I thought the ears would bother me sticking out as much as they do but haven’t had an issue with them.
- It would make for a great case for those with little kids – they can chew on the ears if they need to and not damage the phone.
Cons:
- It’s made of silicone so while it’s easy to grip, it collects everything. I put it in my pocket and it got fuzzies all over it.
- It makes the on/off button at the top a bit harder to get to. It would be great if it stuck out a little more like the volume buttons do.
CONCLUSION
if you’re looking for a novelty case for your iPhone 5 you could do a lot worse than the Toonish Black Cat case from EZ Buys Direct. It’s definitely a worthwhile case for those looking for something different or a conversation starter; and at only $8.00 it’s pretty hard to beat. Despite it’s obvious “cute” factor it provides pretty good protection, certainly more so than at least two of the iPhone 5 cases I’ve owned so far – both of which cost at least three times as much money.
Review: Samsung Galaxy Note 2
I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 “phablet” for about a month now.
Time for a review.
I can do it in three words:
Brick. Of. Shit.
Done.
Am I trolling? No.
Am I anti-Samsung? No, I loved my Galaxy S2.
I just really, really fucking hate this phone.
I hate everything about it.
Everything.
1 million
I failed to notice that my blog hit 1 million views on Monday. I guess that’s good, I don’t know. It’s only been up in this form since around November if I remember right.
Anyway, being the stat-freak that I am, here’s some (not very) interesting statistics:
TOP 10 POSTS OF THE PAST 30 DAYS:
- That’s great, but what about the podcast?
- My fair and honest review of Windows 8, the most amazing operating system of all time
- Smokers are the cockroaches of the communication apocalypse
- Dear Craigslist, why won’t you just buy my f**king Android tablet?
- My unscientific study of Portlanders’ tech of choice
- Review: Jaybird Freedom JF4 Bluetooth Earbuds
- The art of eating pussy
- Explaining your occupation to your parents isn’t as easy as it used to be
- The business travel bad & ugly… because there ain’t anything good about it
- Screw PETA. Here’s more animals I’d like to slaughter in Assassin’s Creed IV
TOP 10 SEARCH TERMS THAT LANDED YOU ON MY BLOG:
- robert wagner
- portland sucks
- windows 8 sucks
- pussy art
- windows 8 worst os ever
- fuck you and your instagram
- jaybird jf4 review
- lacie porsche review
- barbara markay
- jerramy stevens
YOU READ THIS JUNK WITH:
- Windows (32%)
- Mac (29%)
- Linux (1%)
- iOS (34%)
- Android (4%)
“That’s Great, But What About The Podcast?”
That seems to be the question I’m asked the most lately.
Let me put it this way: You can go ahead and unsubscribe to the current podcast feed if you haven’t already. I’d hate to be using even 1/14,000th of a CPU cycle in your PC or your tablet or your smartphone.
There will be no more Portland Sucks podcast.
Instead there will be something different.
There will be no fanfare, no announcements, no bullshit.
I’m going to start over like the past 4 years never happened.
From zero.
If for some reason you’re still interested in my endeavors and want to be informed of when the reset happens, fill out the dead simple form below. You’ll be sent an email asking you to confirm. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you, I’ll simply send you a URL once everything is underway.
An Observation About Social Media…
Have you ever noticed that the same people that whine as follows…
- “If all you’re going to do is tweet about what you’re doing, I wish you wouldn’t tweet at all!”
- “Instagram is stupid. It’s just people taking pictures of their food!”
- “I hate Facebook. Everyone on there is just posting stupid meme pictures!”
…are the same fucking people that never shut up about trivial shit like the summer movie season?
Eat A Dick, Salon Success Strategies
This is just lazy.
I have an appreciation for SPAM when it’s at least somewhat clever. That’s not to say that I like it, or that I like receiving it, I’m just ever-so-slightly more impressed when people actually bother to do a little bit of research.
Much like Shaq’s biological, the dicks at www.salonsuccessstrategies.com didn’t bother.
I love how it starts out: “If you are not a spa, salon or medi-spa or you want to unsubscribe to this and future emails…”
Do I look like a fucking medi-spa to you, asshole? What, so now it’s a thing to blindly send this shit out into the Internet figuring that sooner or later you’re going to end up hitting a fucking salon or two? As if I subscribed to your fucking mailing list in the first place?
Lazy pricks.
One good turn deserves another: I cordially invite you to verbally assault Salon Success Strategies at the official Twitter account of Salon Success Strategies: @SalonBusiness
R.I.P. Adobe Creative Suite
No sooner do I cancel my subscription to Creative Cloud when Adobe decides to kill of the retail version of their Creative Suite software altogether in favor of a subscription-only model.
Apparently the idea of receiving between $49 – $79 per user per month is much more appealing to the company than those one-off payments that usually run thousands of dollars.
Strange timing, but not entirely unexpected.
While there hasn’t been any “official” word from what I’ve seen, I’ve long suspected that Adobe is hurting – and hurting badly – for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the rapid decline in the use of Flash over the past few years.
Adobe makes great software, there’s no denying that, but $600 per year is still a lot to swallow for a lot of their users. It’ll be interesting to see how well they do with a subscription-only model but I don’t see it helping matters much. I liked the service quite a bit while I had it but the alternative apps out there are getting to the point where they’re good enough (and in some cases better) to compete with Adobe’s offerings.
CenturyLink Can Suck It, Time For A New ISP
I probably could have simply tweeted my frustrations below but I wanted a permanent record made of my dissatisfaction.
I’ve been with CenturyLink now for about a year. In that time I had 10 months of mostly trouble-free Internet connectivity. Granted, the speeds aren’t the greatest, particularly when it comes to uploading (128k? ugh) but I’ve had few reasons to complain.
And then last month it all changed.
Disconnects – sometimes 2-3 times per day through the month of April.
Today, during the single most important day of my work-from-home-Internet-using-month, I’ve had 10 disconnects between 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. as I’m writing this.
Whatever happened to “always on” Internet?
What a crock of shit.
I’m back to Comcast effective tomorrow…and it pains me to say that.
My child is a genius…
It has been said that it takes children some 15 to 20 tries (or more) to learn to like new foods.
I’m not sure whether I believe that or not because I’ve watched children try something new and like it immediately – sometimes to the point where they become obsessive about the food item in question and want only that food for a time.
That said, my kid doesn’t fuck around when it comes to food.
This afternoon I watched her put a pinto bean in her mouth, make a face, and take it back out 17 times.
Yes, I counted.
17 times.
This means my child either has the worst short-term memory in the history of the world, or she just wanted to get it the fuck over with and convince us that she never, ever wants another fucking shitty pinto bean put in front of her again in this lifetime.
I’m going with the latter.
Review: Mophie Juice Pack Air For iPhone 5
I’ve had incredibly bad luck with cases for my iPhone 5. I bought my iPhone 5 on launch day so I can pretty easily estimate that I’ve been using it for 7 ½ months non-stop and in that time I’ve owned 4 different cases – including the overrated and 100% awful BookBook by Twelve South.
And I’ve been happy with none of them
The fifth time’s a charm; the Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPhone 5 is without question the best case I’ve owned.
At $99 it’s also by far the most expensive.
Mophie doesn’t really make what you would call “traditional” smart phone cases. Instead, their Juice Pack cases fall into the somewhat unique category of “battery cases.” They not only provide protection for your phone, but also can be used to recharge it without adding a lot of unwanted bulk to the device
I’ve yet to have battery issues with my iPhone 5 despite others’ experiences. I generally charge overnight and get through a full day of what I would call “extensive use” without any trouble, usually with about 15–20% of my battery left by the time I get home. Whether my luck is due to the fact that I seldom use my iPhone 5 for voice calls or not, I don’t know. I do know that I tweet, Facebook, SMS, MMS, email, and surf the web at a rate usually reserved for teenage girls though so I’m definitely putting the iPhone 5 through its paces.
So if I’m not having battery issues, why get a Mophie Juice Pack case?
What’s in the box
Because you never know when you’re going to be out in the middle of nowhere and without a charger.
One of the known issues with many mobile devices is that being in areas with limited/no signal can deplete your phone battery a lot more rapidly than normal. Case in point: every couple of months I find myself in one of Oregon’s many cellular dead zones; in fact, I just returned from spending the day in one before writing this review – a fantastic test of the Mophie Juice Pack Air if ever there was one. I left home with 95% charge and was down to 15% by the end of the afternoon because my iPhone was still trying to connect, get my email, send the photos I’d taken to Instagram, etc.; and I still had a 45-minute drive back to civilization ahead of me.
As we were getting ready to head back to Portland I flipped the switch on the back my Mophie Juice Pack; by the time we were back home, some 45 minutes later, I was back up to 100%.
Impossible? It sure seemed like it, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
So the Mophie Juice Pack Air charges efficiently but how well does it protect the phone itself?
4 white lights means you can completely recharge your iPhone 5
If you’re used to (or require) the kind of protection something like an OtterBox gives you then yes, the Mophie Juice Pack Air might not be the best case for you. It’s substantial and adds a bit of weight and bulk to the iPhone 5 itself but that’s to be expected given the fact that it’s essential a spare battery enclosed in a case. That bulk means that the back and sides of your iPhone will definitely survive being dropped from most reasonable heights. The face though, that’s another story as the Mophie Juice Pack Air only protrudes about 1/16th of an inch out from the iPhone 5’s glass front – enough to protect it from impact in which the iPhone landed flat on its face on a mostly flat surface. If you dropped it face down on gravel or on an object with a flat edge though you’re still just as screwed as if you were using no case at all.
Bottom line as far as protection: the Mophie Juice Pack Air is going to protect the phone from 9/10 drops. If you’re generally a careful person to begin with and not particularly accident-prone then you’re probably fine. However, if you’re working around water or taking the thing rock climbing then yes, you need to think about getting yourself an OtterBox or something similar.
Ok great, but how does it look?
Aesthetically speaking, I’d rate it a 10 (my photos don’t do it justice unfortunately). I got the Product (RED) version and it looks every bit as classy as the iPhone 5 itself. Again, yes, it does add some bulk to the phone but what do you expect? Even with the added thickness though, the result doesn’t feel any thicker or heavier than the iPhone 3GS did. Whether or not the extra protection and more than 100% more battery life is worth the trade off is entirely up to you.
Conclusion
It took 5 tries but I feel like the perfect iPhone 5 case for my needs is finally here. When I can say that the only downside of a given product is that it was released a lot later than I would have liked, that’s a pretty good thing. Yes, $99 is a lot to spend on a phone case, there’s not getting around that, but compared to the nearly $200 I spent in just 7 months it’s a pretty good deal. That’s in my case obviously, your mileage may vary but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Juice Pack Air to anyone with an iPhone 5. It was definitely worth the wait.
Side note: Mophie has started expanding beyond the iPhone and currently offers Juice Pack cases for the Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One Android-based phones as well.
Random thoughts on a Saturday night…
This post has no purpose, it’s purely what the title says it is…
- I’ve been watching season two of The Wire; I’m about two episodes into it. Even though virtually nothing has happened so far, at least compared to the first season, it’s rather disconcerting for me to watch because it reminds me a lot of a job I had between 2001 and 2006. Not a fun job either, I might add.
Smokin’ Aces 2 should never have been made. When I sit down to watch direct to video garbage I expect Dolph Lundgren-caliber horse shit. That this stupid movie even attempted to have a plot is just wrong. Unfortunately I own Smokin’ Aces 2 (I bought the fucking box set, I don’t know why) on Blu Ray so I’ll inevitably watch the whole thing – it’s only a matter of time. I hate wasting money.- I hate smokers. I am still a smoker. That doesn’t mean that I hate myself, but I’m getting closer to it all the time. I went a couple of days without smoking early last week (post-surgery) and wanted to kill someone. I’d say “I wanted to kill a smoker” but what would be the point? Those bastards are already dead inside. I know this, I am one.
- Dokken sucked.
- Loverboy wasn’t much better.
- Speaking of Loverboy, I think Mike Reno ate Anne Wilson during the recording of Almost
ParasitesParadise. Don’t believe me? See image at right. - And speaking of parasites, Eddie Money has two ticks and they’re parasites. Fucking Geico.
- Twitter has made me hate Star Wars today. Fuck Star Wars. I like Star Wars every other day of the year, but not today.
Explaining your occupation to your parents isn’t as easy as it used to be.
Doug Zanger and Sarah Weeden’s excellent piece, “Don’t Try Explaining Your Job In Advertising To Your Parents,” at The Advertising Week Social Club, inspired this post.
Maybe I should have become a police officer or a firefighter or an accountant. I would have included “doctor” but they’re seldom called “doctors” anymore, are they? They’re proctologists or nephrologists or urologists. Hell, being a “lawyer” isn’t even a one-word title anymore, you’re a “tax lawyer” or a “malpractice lawyer” or a “divorce lawyer.”
Maybe it’s always been that way, I don’t know, but today’s professions are more obscure, complex, and convoluted than they’ve ever been – especially if you’re trying to define your career for older generations.
For more than 12 years now I’ve struggled to explain my various means of breadwinning to my folks, and for more than 10 years I’ve failed. Is this my fault? No, not really, the world has been changing rapidly since the rise of the Internet, and just when your parents think they’ve caught up with the times, they wake up one day and find out that no one is using Earthlink or America Online anymore.
Still, they try, but few of us (myself included) are making it any easier on them.
Consider my own (semi) recent occupations:
- Occupation: For two years I was an “entrepreneur” that ran a “start up” that created a “set top box solution” designed to work as something of an ultra high-end audio/video jukebox. Pre-iPod Video and pre-Apple TV, the “box” fit dual ATSC HD tuners and several terabytes of storage into a stereo rack-sized unit that was network ready and capable of ripping, storing, and playing back physical media with a single push of a button.
Translation: “We make a thing that replaces your VCR, your CD player and your DVD player, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “Well I don’t really use the VCR all that much.”
- Occupation: For a while there I was working in DVD Authoring and menu design, creating original animations and using film assets to give your plastic disc movies some polish.
Translation: “I make those menus you go through when you rent a movie at Blockbuster, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “Well next time can you make them shorter? I hate having to sit through those things.”
- Occupation: Upon moving to Portland I became a web, graphic, and UI designer – which I still dabble in for a very select few clients because I mostly can’t stand the work.
Translation: “The stuff you see on the Internet? I make things like that, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “People pay for that? Why? I saw that you could get that done for free on GoDaddy.”
- Occupation: For roughly 3 years I ran a live Internet radio/podcasting studio out of downtown Portland. The endeavor made use of pretty much every skill I possess at one time or another and was generally successful, so long as you don’t measure success by income – at least not while it was operational anyway.
Translation: “It’s like radio for the Internet or you don’t have to listen to it while it’s happening, you can download it later, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “But I don’t have the Internet in my car where I listen to the radio.” “That’s why we encourage listening on smart phones,” I replied. “Oh,” he said, “I don’t think I’d do that.”
- Occupation: Currently I’m one of the few, proud individuals that actually gets paid to blog. While the jobs themselves each entail a bit more than that, that’s the common denominator that’s easy to explain to people.
Translation: “I write stuff. For blogs. On the Internet.”“Oh,” my dad said, “I read in the newspaper that you probably shouldn’t trust anything bloggers write.” “Yes,” I replied, “that’s true.”
I suppose we all seek validation from our parents well into middle age; I often wonder if mine is the first generation to do so. Did our own parents struggle with these things? My dad has been in the same line of work his whole life – something I envy quite a bit even though I chose to leave that same line of work some years ago – but his father did the same thing before him. In other words, my dad had it pretty easy – save for that whole “working for your parents” thing; trust me, it’s the very definition of Hell – he never had to explain what did for a living, they already knew.
And now I can’t help but wonder…
Is the world filled with that many more opportunities than it used to be? Has technology really opened that many new doors in terms of career possibilities? Or are we simply a lot more adept at creating careers out of thin air and hoping for the best no matter how ridiculous some of them might sound to the generation before us?
My answer? Yes. All of the above.
Remember That Day Google’s Services Stopped Working With Google’s Browser?
Once upon a time I was a huge fan of Gmail and pretty much every other Google service under the sun.
I used them all, every last one of them, even Wave.
I become an Android aficionado with the purchase of the original Motorola Droid – I was so taken with the Droid that I paid full price for a replacement after I dropped the first one in the toilet at a Blazers game a mere week after I bought it.
Google could do no wrong – not in my mind anyway.
Lately though, I can’t help but think that there’s a little bit of trouble in that Mountain View, California paradise. For example, just this morning I was unable to connect to Gmail. Yes, online apps sometimes have hiccups but… well… Gmail wasn’t down, it was my Chrome browser that was to blame. According to Google, I should “try using Gmail with a supported browser.”
WTF?! GOOGLE’S DAMN EMAIL IS SUDDENLY NOT SUPPORTED BY GOOGLE’S OWN BROWSER?!
Of course it worked in Internet Explorer 10 just fine.
I’m beginning to think there’s something to this “Scroogled” thing after all…