This was just part of my joy today. All 14,000+ spammy blog comments have been purged and I’ve enlisted the help of Akismet & ReCaptcha to help from here on out. I know it’s a pain in the ass if you want to chime in, but so is delving through the myriad of shit that’s ended up on here.

I’m likely to drop in Disqus in the coming weeks as soon as I upgrade WordPress to the latest build and throw a new theme on.

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Tissues are important. Our nose is a veritable nozzle for all sorts of strange stuff, and you’ve got to put it somewhere. I’d easily consider them my 4th favorite paper product ( right behind 1. toilet paper, 2. paper towels, 3. Origami paper), and by god if I haven’t gotten stuck with some shitty tissue boxes in my day. That’s why when I saw these suckers at the store the other day I had to pick up a box. Mainly because they were one of the three types without god awful looking flowers on them. By the way, if you’ve been to the UK, they have “Tissues for Men” which are about twice the size, an extra ply, and have boxes that have been “designed with the man in mind.” Figure out what that means.

Back to the point–this box looks serious. Like medicine serious. They’re so serious they need a super hero/anemic child with no eyes to smell them in the advertisements (seen on the right). The outside of the box features what looks like guitar picks (actually Vicks logo silhouettes), adorning a cool aqua-marine swoosh that wraps around the entire thing. This is far more impressive and visually neutral compared to some of those flower boxes, and by god I needed to buy one.

Unfortunately a) they smell like cough syrup and b) I bought two boxes.

The problem is these things are meant to be therapeutic, but as a side effect, the 3-foot radius around the box smells like cough syrup. Even worse, using the things makes your hands smell like cough medicine until you wash them (which theoretically you should be doing quite often if you’re actually sick) .

Dammit.

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That’s really not the worst part though. This magazine made its way into my mailbox two weeks ago, and the game was released last Tuesday with many gaming sites not getting their hands on it until a week before, let alone Maxim, who has no clear games editor (go ahead, check their vague staff listing), and the section in question offers no byline whatsoever. I’m not one to question if they really took the time to play the game before giving the game its rating, but it gets worse.

Blacksite: Area 51 (the game pictured above Bioshock) has the same star rating, and doesn’t come out until early November. That’s three months away. I seriously doubt Maxim’s had a chance to even play anything besides the shit-tacular demo that made its way onto the XBOX Live Marketplace in early May.

Why is this even worth blogging, or bitching about? Well, not much besides the fact that if you’re even going to bother putting this type of shit in your publication you should back it up with something. I’d hate to see little Billy get Area 51 for Christmas instead of Bioshock because his daddy is taking game buying advice from Maxim. Well…actually if that’s the case, Billy has bigger problems.

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Oh Bungie. I knew the day would arrive, I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

They say the best things in life are those that are a mere glimmer. While it bums me out that I’m not going to get any more sweet Halo 3 multiplayer action again until late September, it’s also probably a good thing, as I was getting rather tired of playing the same three maps and about two game types. I can still never go back to playing Halo 2 though. I have a feeling I’d spend the first few games re-learning the controls and getting absolutely destroyed by these kids who sit around and play it all day. Speaking of which, as highly offensive and completely NSFW as this video is, I absolutely adore it.

[youtube Jz3br1q5wIQ]

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Now, compare if you will a trip to two of the closest local retailers, circuit city and best buy. At both the cheapest cables ran at about $50+. Given these were “higher end” cables (although the only ones that you’ll find in store), the bottom line is that digital is digital, and the signal either gets there or it doesn’t. Consumers shouldn’t be ripped off, or tricked into having to buy top of the line items because they’re visiting your store.

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Yesterday was an interesting day. I helped my buddy Rob move from one end of town to the other, and after a long, hard day of nearly losing fingers, pulling muscles, and finding out I’m really out of shape, I figured it was time to reward myself with a snack while re-fueling the U-HAUL. Amidst the wonderland of overpriced snacks that make up the gas station convenience store, lies a foul, stalwart of a treat known as Doritos’ marketing trick de jour…

It’s called X-13D, and is supposedly a “flavor experiment.” I’ll kill the suspense right now, it’s supposed to taste like a cheeseburger. For lack of a better way to describe the new flavor, it’s absolutely disgusting. What might be the worst part (besides the fact you can’t get your money back without spending 15 minutes on the phone with customer service–hardly worth the $.99), is the flavor, which in my opinion is not something I want in a tortilla chip snack. What makes a cheeseburger, or any burger for that matter, delicious is its texture and balance of flavors. The soft bun, the crisp lettuce and pickles, mixed in with drippy sauces and gooey cheese. Not to mention the meat, which if you’ve spent more than $4 should taste like humankind’s glorious victory over agriculture (and vegetarians).

None of these things are in X-13D, except the god awful aftertaste you get in your mouth a) from eating Doritos, and b) a cheeseburger. It’s somewhere between the artificial flavor they’ve put in there for pickles, and the other for mayo. Either way it’s nasty and sticks with you for at least an hour. I’d recommend steering away from these things at all costs.

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Junkmail. It’s one of the many wonders of the modern age. If there’s one thing I hate more than spam, it’s junk mail. Rewind about a year and a half ago. I had just purchased www.TheBigFootChallenge.com from GoDaddy under the name of “JL productions,” with my home address and mobile phone number. I didn’t feel like spending the extra $8 for WHOIS anonymity because I thought “hey, if somebody needs to contact me, it’s probably important.”

In less than 24 hours, I began getting phone calls about every 2 hours or so from various companies offering me services from hosting to traffic monitoring. You name it, I got a call about it. I quickly called up GoDaddy, explained the situation and was met with a “Yeah, this happens all the time. Sorry about that” from the agent. 15 minutes and $8 later, I was completely anonymous again…to everyone except Chase who had apparently gotten a hold of it rather quickly.

Since then about three times a week I get a credit card offer from Chase that’s addressed to JL Productions. It’s the same exact offer, and they just keep sending it to me. I can only imagine how much it’s cost them just in postage JUST to send it to me. Needless to say, I hate having to shred these things. They come in this envelope that’s nearly impossible to tear open, and just thick enough so you can’t just pop it in the shredder. When you do open it, sometimes they’ll come with a fake credit card, which makes me have to pull it apart from the paper just to shred separately.

I began collecting these things in a big pile for mass shredding about two months ago. Today I was cleaning my apartment, so I thought I’d take the liberty of having a shred fest. What you see below is made up entirely of Chase credit card offers.

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