A philosophical discussion

Mr. Cool™ says:GOD DAMN MEGA MAN IS HARD

Mr. Cool™ says:they expect u to slide to keep the guy from blowing u off the edge, yet while u slide he shoots lightning bolts at you which u have to jump to avoid but u can’t jump because you’re sliding!!!!

Mr. Cool™ says:god damn, game over

Mr. Cool™ says:I swear I will destroy this game

Mr. Cool™ says:I’ll take the disc while it’s still spinning

Mr. Cool™ says:put it in my mouthMr. Cool™ says:chomp on it and break it in two

Mr. Cool™ says:chew it up into a million piecesMr. Cool™ says:and spit it in the trash.

Oguz says:thats really specificOguz says:but Oguz says:if ur gonna break into a million pieces, why specify first breaking it into twp

Oguz says:two Oguz says:might as well include 10 pieces and 3000 pieces while ur at it

Mr. Cool™ says:because u gotta chomp it once to get it going Mr. Cool™ says:chomping does not equal chewing

Oguz says:it does

Oguz says:chewing is just incessant (sp?) chompingMr. Cool™ says:no a chomp is more intense

Oguz says:then why not chomp it into a million pieces, ud reach ur goal much fasterMr. Cool™ says:bcz chomps can only be done once or twice in a row

Oguz says:whyMr. Cool™ says:they require more effort

Oguz says:but it breaks the cd into more pieces right?Oguz says:so I guess the question is

Oguz says:is you chomping the CD worth the extra energy if it gets to a million pieces faster?Mr. Cool™ says:no

Mr. Cool™ says:bcz once u chew it a while it gets all mushy anywaysMr. Cool™ says:and you’d probably be in too much pain by the time u reach that point Mr. Cool™ says:what with all the cd splinters in your mouth

Oguz says:i see

Oguz says:so what you’re saying isOguz says:you’re already gonna be in painyou don’t wanna spend any more energy chomping on it as well

Mr. Cool™ says:ok let’s drop thisMr. Cool™ says:I beat the level anyways

Mr. Cool™ says:it’s like yesterday I was talking about the coOkie monster with another one of the RAsMr. Cool™ says:I was like “it’s so inefficient how all the coOkies just fall out of his mouth”

Mr. Cool™ says:so we ended up devising a whole gadget that would allow the puppeteer to eat the coOkiesMr. Cool™ says:first u put a tube in the back of coOkie monster’s mouth so the crumbs can go down it

Mr. Cool™ says:u also make saliva glands which secreet milk to soften up the coOkie chunksMr. Cool™ says:and you install a George Forman grill in the upper and lower parts of his mouth so that it will warm up it up

Mr. Cool™ says:so what u get is a nice warm mushy sweet coOkie puree flowing directly into the puppeteer’s mouthOguz says:can i copy and paste this conversation on my blog?

Mr. Cool™ says:u actually think it’s blog-worthy??Mr. Cool™ says:sure, I don’t see why not

Oguz says:ok

Georgia Vs. Turkey – Feb 7, 2007

Oh, my motley crew of under-paid disappointments, how I’ve missed you all. I will be at work, so I won’t be able to watch the game–damn the time difference–but if anyone can, they should. Show TV will be broadcasting it online, and it’s terrific quality. Here is our squad:

Volkan, Hamit, Ibrahim Uzulmez, Tuncay, Arda, Halil, Sabri, Tugay, Aydın, Servet, Aurelio.

• Emre and my fellow Antakya denizen Gokhan Zan are injured, but their presence won’t really be missed against a weak team like Georgia.
• Tugay has been called back for what some people claimed would be his jubilee, but I guess Fatih Terim denied any such possibility. So my guess is this won’t be Tugay’s last game.
• Speaking of which, Fatih Terim will break a record today; this will be his 55th game with the national side, the longest ever apparently. His track record so far, according to Milliyet: 27 wins, 15 draws, and 12 losses.

The video to end all the world’s problems

There’s nothing more pure than a baby’s laughter. And no, he’s not wasted. Enjoy:

Novels to your e-mail

I found a fantastic site through a link on one of my favorite blogs, winterspeak. It’s called Daily Lit, and delivers daily all the great classics of literature to your e-mail inbox in small, readable portions. Perfect for anyone who thinks they don’t have time in their busy schedules to commit to a book (you always have time!). From Edwin Abbott to Emile Zola, there’s a huge selection of works to pick from. My first subscription: Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence.

Is Hillary the next President?

Good article on BBC news with some early analysis on the long campaign ahead. I agree particularly with the bolded paragraph: I’ve witnessed first hand a Congressional candidate in my own state losing an otherwise well-run election campaign to a terrible incumbent simply on the basis of her gender. People are probably afraid a woman in office at a time of war will start crying and go on a crazy shopping spree to ‘get her mind off things for a while’.

• Senator Clinton regularly comes top in polls asking Democrats who they would like their 2008 White House candidate to be.
• But Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, is not so certain that Hillary Clinton will be waltzing into the White House any time soon. “And I have never understood how someone could spend so much time around Bill Clinton and be such a wooden speaker”
• In the states that are first to choose their preferred presidential candidate, he adds, she is not doing as well. He says the intensely committed party activists in those states may fear she cannot win a national election and will shy away from her. 
• But it would be equally unwise to bet that the US will elect a woman president when the country is at war – much less one who is already reviled by a substantial minority of Americans for her perceived liberalism and association with Bill Clinton.

Beckhamania

Most of the coverage surrounding Beckham’s transfer to LA Galaxy has been about the inflated salary he’ll be earning once he completes his transfer in June. He’ll be taking home $250 million over a period of 10 years, which is twice what the current record holder A-Rod earns.

There’s actually a writer over at Slate who claims that Beckham’s transfer will ultimately be bad for American football, considering that his pay doens’t really match his true footballing ability, and that this will actually hurt the other good players in the league. Granted Beckham is mediocre, at best, vis-a-vis his skills on the pitch, but the reason why MLS clubs can’t transfer, say Cannavaro or Ronaldinho is because only Beckham is capable of paying his own salary through endorsements and such; only $50 of the $250 million will come straight from his new club, the rest being paid for through endorsements and such

In Madrid, he earns $7.7 million a year, and approximately $30 million more from sponsors, although half of the latter figure goes to the Spanish club. So he will actually be getting a raise once here. What’s more, Beckham has always indicated that he longs for the relative privacy he gets whenever he’s in the States; it’s no secret that he’s concerned about the safety of his family after recent kidnapping attempts, and if I were him, I too would feel much safer in the States rather than Europe, although that might change once his wife starts hanging out with Paris and Lindsay.

All in all, Beckham will get to play more, he’ll get to finally realize his lifelong dream of opening football schools for youth in the States, and he will obviously get paid well for doing it, but I do feel bad that he’ll be ending his career in the most obscure league in the world. He’ll be looked down upon by his compatriots in Europe, much more–I think–than those players who take their fading careers to Saudi Arabia or Qatar, like Figo for instance. However, I’d hate to see him–as I’m sure we will–relegated to tabloids and celebrity red-carpet events rather than FIFA award ceremonies.

Tigger attacking a kid

You must have heard this on the news: Tigger hits a kid as he tries to pose for a picture with his brothers. At first I thought I’d blame the kid for what happened; he was probably messing with Tigger’s suit or something, which is what I thought provoked Pooh’s temperamental little buddy, but then I wondered whether these guys at Disneyland undergo any sort of training whatsoever before they start getting into these suits. You can’t just clock a kid for something as stupid as pulling on your suit. But then I read a couple of the comments on YouTube, and concluded that it was just a mistake. You can’t see much out of those suits, especially something that’s standing right beside you. What probably happened was Tigger lost his balance (his feet are backed up against the concrete), and in his frantic attempt to grab onto something, he hit the poor kid standing next to him. I’m curious to see what the outcome of this whole case will be. Personally, I don’t think Disney owes the family anything other than an apology, which they’ve already given, but you never know, they might end up milking Mickey et al for a considerable amount of dough.

Euro 2008 section removed

The Euro 2008 section addition seemed to be a good idea when I first started it. It would have been a great reference to look back on as the qualifying session intensified, but I paid it a visit today, and noticed none of the clips are available anymore through YouTube. It was going to be a pain updating every single video after every single matchday, so I decided to ditch the idea. A more talented blogger could probably figure out a way to update them automatically, but that ain’t me.

Speaking of which, I’m suffering from football withdrawal. I remember back home I used to get every possible channel, which let me watch the English, German, Portuguese, French and of course the Turkish leagues. Over here I have to make ado with the Fox Soccer Channel which I don’t even get anymore now that I moved. I should probably subscribe to some online service; going to a pub every other day simply to watch a league game is a little sad, in my humble opinion.

Tackling spam

Something that really irritates my socks off (a phrase I heard on the radio) is spam. A couple of years ago, I had to discard my beloved yahoo e-mail address simply because I had to rummage through 100 annoying messages to find one single e-mail from, say, an aunt. As much as I love my aunts, I figured it just wasn’t worth keeping the address. Besides, there wasn’t any elaborate system to block spam back then.

Right now, however, I find hotmail does a good job filtering all this spam, and even makes it easy to validate any genuine e-mail that may have slipped into the junk folder by mistake. So even though it’s not as big of a problem for me as it used to be, it still agitating to think that these people are still at it. It must mean that they’re having at least some measure of success to keep spending a ridiculous amount of time and money on devising new ways to dodge filters. 

So, as usual, I had an epiphany the other day. Why don’t e-mail service providers devise a system whereby designating an e-mail as spam not only blocks any further e-mails from the same domain, but also returns the spam e-mail as ‘undeliverable’ back to the spammer. This way, the spammer could potentially find himself/itself (if a bot) bombarded with thousands of undeliverable e-mails in its inbox. It may or may not deter them from doing what they do, but it will surely annoy the hell out of them. So at least we’d be giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Look at some of the costs that spam induces on us (source wikipedia):

The California legislature found that spam cost United States organizations alone more than $10 billion in 2004, including lost productivity and the additional equipment, software, and manpower needed to combat the problem.

Spam’s direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of dismissing unwanted messages. In addition, spam has costs stemming from the kinds of spam messages sent, from the ways spammers send them, and from the arms race between spammers and those who try to stop or control spam. In addition, there are the opportunity cost of those who forgo the use of spam-afflicted systems. There are the direct costs, as well as the indirect costs borne by the victims – both those related to the spamming itself, and to other crimes that usually accompany it, such as financial theft, identity theft, data and intellectual property theft, virus and other malware infection, child pornography, fraud, and deceptive marketing.

Technically, I don’t know if spamming is an invasion of my privacy, if I’m using a free service provided by, say, hotmail but either way, Bill Gates says it will soon be a thing of the past, so thank God for that.

Last raves & rants of 2006

• It was my birthday a couple of days ago. I spent the evening with family going to my favorite restaurant and then a movie. The movie–the Departed–was good and everything, but I realized that it seems as if it’s in a movie theatre where all the different types of people I despise come to congregate. For instance, the type of people I hate the most are those who don’t have any table manners, who ruin the experience of dining for others by chewing like a horse. Well why is it that I always end up sitting in front of that horse incarnate at a movie? Millions of years of evolution, and yet we can’t even learn to chew pop corn without causing a racket. Other people I hate are those who think they know how a movie is going to unfold before anyone else. You can hear the sporadic “ooohhhhhh”s and “aaaaahhhhhh”s; like we care for their speedy cognitive abilities. In years past, I have–on several occasions–made my annoyance clear to the people in question, but I’ve found this spoils the rest of the evening for me, so I just ignore the incessant chomping and the annoying teenagers, and try to focus on the movie.
• Speaking of movies, I saw Derailed on DVD yesterday, and if you’re into thrillers and such, I highly recommend it. It’s about two strangers who are on the brink of having an affair, but are attacked and mugged in the process. The assailant then starts to blackmail both of them knowing that the two can’t afford to have their affair made public. Must see!
• Speaking of Derailed, I saw the complete video of Saddam’s execution on some shady website. It was really sad, whatever your opinion on the guy is. There were people taunting him as they tied the noose around his neck, and he snapped back by asking them ‘Is this bravery?’. After seeing some of the consequences of USA’s exploits on the streets of Iraq, I actually feel sorry for Saddam, and I hope that the day arrives when they rue his execution. By the way, why is Bush afraid of Muqtada al-Sadr? Because he doesn’t want Shiite to hit the fan.
• Happy new year to everyone in advance. My new year’s resolution is definitely to post more frequently. I believe I only had 3 posts in December, which is unacceptable, even by recreational blogger standards, unacceptable I say.