The insistence on the part of the Chinese (and elsewhere, to be sure) of stealing other peoples' ideas, and then repackaging them into inferior products to sell to unsuspecting luddites, never fails to make my blood boil. It's not cutesy fun to me anymore, to look and say "oh look what half-assed shit those people make!" This past Christmas a friend of mine ordered a HiPhone on behalf of his father, to give to the daughter of his father's girlfriend (stick with me). This "HiPhone" ([www.mobilewhack.com]) is a pretty close knock-off of the iPhone, until you actually start using it and realize that it's about 10 years behind the ball as any sort of pocket electronic device, and I still pity that girl for having received it as a Christmas present.
I wish these people would make something of themselves and go out and earn an honest living. If you can't think up your own innovative ideas, then you should probably fuck off and go be a farmer or a bartender, and leave the inventing to the inventors.
Stuff like this is for people who are making a statement about how they can afford to have a complete and utter lack of taste. I helped out on an episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition last year, and at the unveiling there was some froofy balding guy in the VIP section who was wearing these spastically tacky sunglasses that had designer logos the size of postage stamps on the temples, and a leather jacket that looked like the sort that you can only wear indoors without damaging it. If I hadn't gone about 30 hours on 4 hours sleep, I would have been very tempted to point at him and laugh out loud. With my hat off, so he'd be able to see that I have a naturally full head of hair.
@RainyDayInterns: Yeah, well, we would have loved it more if they'd namedropped MichLUG for pretty much single-handedly doing all the LEGO-work in the youngest kid's room. You know, considering they tracked us down and specifically requested our help in that regard. We got no listing in the credits, and out of about half a dozen participants, I am the only one you can see in the real-time footage...where I'm seen, from the back, holding up a model airplane in a different room. Plain and simple, we got shafted. Instead of acknowledging all the hard work we put in, they instead did some feel-good clip where they went to a child-therapy group that the three boys had been attending, and had them build a bunch of models to "help out". Not one of those models ever appeared in the room that I ever noticed, and while admittedly I was not actually in the room during the final hour or two before they let the family in, I have a strong suspicion that the segment with the kids was filmed after the house was turned over to the family.
When you really see what's going on, it's very obvious that it's more feel-good than do-good. They gave a 3000-sqft house to a family of four, and filled it with at least seven HDTVs and Blu-Ray players, lit pretty much every room with recessed lighting (nothing like lighting a 10'x10' room with a dozen 60w bulbs to keep energy costs down!), and gave them a living room that's two stories tall. Between skyrocketing property taxes and utilities, this family of four (that had no income that I'm aware of) should be in even worse financial ruin by the end of the year that they're required to keep the house intact. But of course, noone wants to watch an hour-long show where they give some deserving family a completely sensible house that they can afford to live in.
Also, they put a large aquarium in the dining area, and dropped a damn lionfish in it. Sure, it's a gorgeous fish, but who gives lethally poisonous pets to families with young kids?
03/19/09
I wish these people would make something of themselves and go out and earn an honest living. If you can't think up your own innovative ideas, then you should probably fuck off and go be a farmer or a bartender, and leave the inventing to the inventors.
03/19/09
Just go buy a (whatever) and put (whatever) on it.
Look, it's the FUTURE, here! Get with the times.
03/18/09
03/18/09
03/18/09
03/18/09
03/18/09
Yeah, well, we would have loved it more if they'd namedropped MichLUG for pretty much single-handedly doing all the LEGO-work in the youngest kid's room. You know, considering they tracked us down and specifically requested our help in that regard. We got no listing in the credits, and out of about half a dozen participants, I am the only one you can see in the real-time footage...where I'm seen, from the back, holding up a model airplane in a different room. Plain and simple, we got shafted. Instead of acknowledging all the hard work we put in, they instead did some feel-good clip where they went to a child-therapy group that the three boys had been attending, and had them build a bunch of models to "help out". Not one of those models ever appeared in the room that I ever noticed, and while admittedly I was not actually in the room during the final hour or two before they let the family in, I have a strong suspicion that the segment with the kids was filmed after the house was turned over to the family.
When you really see what's going on, it's very obvious that it's more feel-good than do-good. They gave a 3000-sqft house to a family of four, and filled it with at least seven HDTVs and Blu-Ray players, lit pretty much every room with recessed lighting (nothing like lighting a 10'x10' room with a dozen 60w bulbs to keep energy costs down!), and gave them a living room that's two stories tall. Between skyrocketing property taxes and utilities, this family of four (that had no income that I'm aware of) should be in even worse financial ruin by the end of the year that they're required to keep the house intact. But of course, noone wants to watch an hour-long show where they give some deserving family a completely sensible house that they can afford to live in.
Also, they put a large aquarium in the dining area, and dropped a damn lionfish in it. Sure, it's a gorgeous fish, but who gives lethally poisonous pets to families with young kids?
10/29/08