I have a lot to do this morning, so there will be no post. Instead, let me just give you a YouTube video:

I don't see what the problem is with plastic surgery. I mean, plastic gets recycled and altered all the time. What's wrong with changing some plastic mug into, say... a cuisinart lid?
...
What?
Oh, that kind of plastic surgery?
That's just silly. I would never do it. Granted, I'm not horribly disfigured by some horrendous accident, in which case I would reconsider. I guess some people are just that concerned about their image that they would want to change it completely, but I'm not. Even if I had a schnoz the size of a Winnebago, I would just live with it. First of all, I think doctors are risky business. I avoid regular check-ups, let alone major facial reorganization surgery. Going to a doctor is like saying you don't know how to take care of your body. Well, you can forget about that. I'm a grown up now! I know what I'm doin', maaaaan! I don't need 'em. Though, I'll admit that the big gash on my leg is looking a little gangrenous. Another reason is the cost. It's just too low. Nowadays, anybody with a couple thousand bucks can walk into a plastic surgeons office and say, "gimme a new set of eyebrows!" They need to crank this up so that only the super rich can afford it. That way, if I were to consider it (and get that much money), I would be in with the cool crowd. Oh, and insurance shouldn't cover it. Lastly, it does not involve enough plastic. People get their noses chopped up or the facial skin torgued back, but very little plastic is ever put into the person. This needs to change. If we're going to call it plastic surgery, then it needs more plastic. If you want to look like a Barbie doll (or a GI Joe action figure), you better be ready to really look like one.

   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

I took the day off from work yesterday. Since I had a
vacation day, I was able to take the day off and still get paid. I felt bad
that I was basically getting paid to sit around the house in my pajamas while
my coworkers increased their carpal tunnel syndrome, so I decided to even it
out by going shopping (okay, I didn't really feel bad). So with my credit card
in hand (and my clothes on), I went off to the mall to feed my capitalistic
urges. My first stop was FYE, where I had a date with my fourth limited edition
DVD of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I was, however,
setting myself up for disappointment...

(Note to anyone making a TV show about my life: It might be
a good idea to leave this as a cliff-hanger and jump to a commercial. Add in
some dramatic music, too.)

It turns out that they did not receive it yet. I was as
furious as any apathetic man of my stature would be (meh). I left the store in
a huff and was suddenly confronted by two girls pitching some sort of all natural
skin care product. They say it makes use of natural salts in the Dead Sea to
flake off dead skins and oil to make your face as smooth as Jell-O. I was
tempted to let them try a sample on me then scream as if doused with holy
water, but instead I politely declined and went to eat lunch.

I stopped at a McDonalds for lunch and had a number one
without pickles. The Big Mac was mediocre, which is pretty good for McDonalds
standards. They have decided to introduce an inventory control system, however.
It seems that too many people have been stealing food, so now they have it
where if you try to leave the store with some French fries you didn't pay for,
an alarm goes off... and you are shot. Fortunately, I was able to finish my
meal with little bloodshed.

I then went to GameStop to see if my preordered copy of
Puzzle de Harvest Moon had come in. It had not, but it
should be in tomorrow. Terrific. I came to the mall to spend an entire day's
pay, and all I've spent so far was five bucks. This called for drastic
measures...

(Note: This would probably warrant additional dramatic music
and commercials. Remember, I get royalties.)

The time had come to go to the one place where I can
always find ways to spend money. I left the mall and drove straight to Painted
Visions, my friendly, local comic book store. I have absolutely no bookshelf
space left, and I'm almost out of floor space, so I figured it was a good time
to purchase some more manga. I picked up two copies of Tsukuyomi Moon
Phase, something called Someday's Dreamers, as
well as the newest Translucent and
Yotsuba&. The first two were okay, while the latter two
were gold. This ran me up about fifty-three dollars, but it still wasn't quite
my pay for the day. I decided to stop there, since I was going to spend the
rest of that day's pay on my two preorders tomorrow. My
Melancholy better be in or the shopkeeper will hear some
very angry words not meant for virgin ears (gosh darn).

Part 1: Completion of Rune Factory

I finally managed to beat Rune Factory yesterday morning. Ipicked up this game the day it came out, but due to forces beyond my control Icontinued to put it off. Yesterday, however, I managed to swallow my apathy andfinish it off. I completed the entire storyline, got hitched to Melody, andacquired more wealth than the gods. I managed to do all of this in less thanone in-game year. Rune Factory is one of the better Harvest Moon games I haveplayed, and I have played a lot of them. The addition of sword-fighting, whilesomewhat unorthodox, fit itself well into the game. One of the biggestcomplaints from other reviewers of the game was the way that farm chores woulddrain your rune points, which were used for magic and sword fighting as well.Once you had a decent sized farm in place, though, with several ripened crops,this problem is moot. You can collect enough nature runes on your farm torecuperate those lost from daily chores, and if you maintain enough "runefactories" in dungeons, there is little need to worry when sword fighting.The graphics, while not great, were pretty good for Harvest Moon standards. Iliked the way you could finally run through crop fields, even when they arefully grown.
Another welcome addition to the Harvest Moon universe isforging. You are no longer required to pay the blacksmith monopolistic pricesto forge new tools for you to use. Now you can make them at home. Not onlytools, but you can also make accessories to boost your stats, and medicines foruse on the battlefield. The cooking system is also slightly different, in thatyou have to actually purchase recipe books and increase your skill withexperience. Each dish you make improves your ability to make more advanced dishes.Even though I beat the game, I'm still working on making all of these.
Therelationship system in this game is somewhat different from others in theseries. You still have "friendship points" for all of the townmembers, while the bachelorettes have a separate "love point" scalefor how much they are interested in you. Love points no longer increase just bygiving girls gift (for most, anyway). Instead, each girl has her own way ofimproving it. In Melody's case, she likes it when you visit and use her bath(she runs a bathhouse, pervert). There are also a handful of heart events thatare fun to try and find.
There is wi-fi functionality, but I have not actuallyused it. Supposedly, every time you trade and item across it, it goes up alevel and has its price improve. I'm sure this is lovely, but unnecessary. Inshort, this game is great, and I recommend it to everyone, and not just HarvestMoon fans.

Part 2: American Gangster

So I got to see the new movie American Gangster yesterday. It was okay. Yes, just okay. It was a lot like Scarface, only not as fun. It's a movie that takes place not in early 80s Florida, by early 70s Harlem. It follows the rise of an idealistic drug baron as he applies the Wal-Mart philosophy to his business. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, his world starts crashing down on him. The thing is, it's not because of what he does. He is very careful in keeping himself separate from his affairs. He also leads a fairly righteous life. It is only because of a series of small events that finally gets him caught. The movie also tells the tale of a detective who gets a job in drug enforcement, and how his life sucks. I'm not going to go into to much detail, but it was okay. I would still recommend seeing the movie, but you may as well wait until it comes out on video.

One of the funnier bumper stickers I’ve seen in
a while was one on an old Sentra that said "Elect Jesus." I'm sure it
wasn't supposed to be taken literally, but what if it was? Would somebody
really want to elect a guy who has been dead for almost two-thousand years and
spent his life hanging around? It should also be noted that he was not born in
the US,
let alone on this continent, and never reached the age of thirty-five, so he is
quite ineligible. Lets just pretend, though, that he was alive and actually
running, in a hypothetical vein. At first, I thought that he would run as a
Republican, as he would get a lot of votes from the Christian right. The more I
thought about this, though, the more I realized this wouldn't work. While I'm
sure Jesus would get a lot of the Christian vote, I'm sure many other Republicans
would be turned off by his liberal ideas and messiah complex. He preaches a lot
about peace and loving your neighbors. I'm sure many hard-core conservatives
would consider this "homo-talk" and may question his lack of female
partnership. He would most likely run as a Democrat. Again, this may prove
problematic with his hard-line stance on religion, and his view that people
should accept his dad as the one lord. He could probably get a lot more votes
if he preached acceptance of other religions as one of his platforms, but this
could backfire if many voters became overzealous of their own religion. I'm
sure that the question on everyone's mind, though, is what his campaign theme
song would be. I don't think "Born in the USA" would work. Neither would
"Killing in the Name of". I'm thinking it should be "Jesus
Christ Superstar". He would also need to get a last name. I'm not sure
President of Nazareth or President Christ would catch on.

I heard a commercial on
the radio the other day that was talking about a new cancer treatment. The
commercial went something along these lines. "There are two words that you
just don't want to hear in the same sentence: inoperable... and cancer."
Well, those certainly are bad words to hear in the same sentence, though I
think that's worded poorly. What if the sentence was something good? "Well
Mrs. Adams, it would seem your husband's ingrown toenail is inoperable, but at
least he does not have cancer." Doesn't that make you feel at least a
little bit better? Plus, there are a lot of other words that I wouldn't want to
hear in the same sentence. Some that come readily to mind include:

Cake and Pepsi
Corpses and walking
Alien and invasion
Testicles and thresher
Snakes and plane
Bush and third
Giant and ants
This and that

I guess this commercial was just worded poorly. I suppose
the commercial would have been more effective if it was more forceful.
"Hey, stupid! You need this treatment, so hurry up and get cancer! Go
outside right now and sit under the sun in naught but your skivvies for the
rest of the day. Thank you."

Warning: The following post contains
excessive use of the word "chair." If you or any of your friends,
family, or religious leaders are offended by the word "chair," please
skip today's post. This concludes the warning, and today's post will proceed
presently.

Did you ever sit down in a chair shortly after someone just
left it? Of course you have. Isn't the chair still a little warm from the other
person?  Now, this I can understand. What
I don't understand is why you don't feel your own body heat when you sit down
in your chair just after leaving it. At work, I was sitting in my chair for
several hours. I then went up to do something that took less than a minute, and
then sat back down in the same chair. For some reason, it was not warm. I
couldn't help but wonder why. Could it be that my posterior remained warm from
sitting in the chair for so long that the temperature of both was roughly
equal, and I didn't notice? Could it be that everybody as their own, unique
posterior heat signature that always feels different if somebody else sits
down? If that was the case, wouldn't people with a lower signature feel colder
to someone with a higher signature? Could it be that some people sit heavier in
chairs? Maybe some sink in to chairs more and transfer more heat into it, while
others remain on tenterhooks and don't sink in. Would any of these theories
still apply to a toilet seat, where the middle is cut out? It was at about this
time that my boss got angry at me for spacing out.

I read an article on Kotaku a couple of days ago aboutso-called "otaku hunters." They roam around the streets of Akihabara(otherwise known as an otaku's Mecca) and bump into people. From there, theymake a big scene and demand a payment as an apology. Most Japanese geeks,wishing to avoid any trouble, just pay the scum-bags and move on. Heaven forbidthat one of these hunters should try and pull that on an American tourist. Forthose of you who live in America (myself included), you know that American'sare completely bonkers (myself included). If they bumped into one of us, we would probably be the ones demandingthe money. If the hunter was the one to first spout the demand, we'd probablypunch 'im in the face, or, more likely, shoot him. Remember, we'rehyper-violent Americans. We'll rip your spine out. Don't screw with our money.And watch where you're going. (sauce)

HAPPY ALL SAINTS' DAY!
So, the eve of All Saints' Day
has passed once again. I didn't really do too much. I got to stay at home and
hand out candy. I'm not complaining, though, as I did have a good time. I was
in my pirate regalia, and played the part well to all the trick-or-treaters. I
didn't reek of grog, but there were plenty of "ya-harrrrrs" and
"here be your candy, maties." A good number of people came by in
costumes that were interesting. I should first point out that the majority of
costumed individuals were pirates!
In your face, landlubbers! The Flying Spaghetti Monster has truly graced
several with His noodly appendage. Some other costume favorites I saw included
several Darth Vaders, ninja turtles (sadly, there was a lack of Donatellos),
pink princesses, and ninja. These ranged from generic store-bought costumes
(nothing wrong with that) to the really well made costumes. One of the best
costumes I saw was on a little kid, that couldn't have been older than seven,
who was dressed as Optimus Prime. This costume was very well made, shiny, and
even had a little arm cannon that made sound effects. That was the best costume
I saw all evening. I took my hat off and bowed to that masterpiece. There were
also several spoil-sports who did not dress up at all. They only got one piece
of candy (each). I was a bit saddened by the lack of Mario, Link, Phoenix
Wright, and other gaming characters, but I suppose it could have been worse.
Fortunately, I didn't see any Jack Thompson costumes. That would have been
scary.