sticky ntoe

This sporadically updated blog will be going on an indefinite hiatus.

The Metrosexualization of the Hummer

Within three generations of development, the Hummer has changed from an intimidating military vehicle to an extremely easy and metrosexual car.

Look at the original Hummer:
Straight lines, hard corners, and very very ugly. It's a fairly functional vehicle.

Look at the H2:
Still some straight lines, but some curved lines too, and a smaller and almost castrated front hood. All in all a simply more palatable vehicle.

Look at the upcoming H3:
Even more curved lines and softer corners. The grill managed to get even gentler. It now looks like a regular SUV. The H3 is just cute as a button.

The H3 is obviously trying to target a different type of consumer than the original. Even on their website, surf over to their sketches of the H3, they're all done in shades of yellow, blue and purple.

I can think of a few reasons for this:

1. Women make as many as 80% of the car-buying decisions in the family. Even the Hummer commercials are targeting women, showing a suburban mother dropping off her kid on the first day at school.
   


2. Women prefer curves.
   


3. The market for general car-buyers is simply much larger than the market for enthusiasts. It's true. I don't even have to link this.
   

To prove my point beyond a shadow of a doubt, I've uncovered an exclusive image of what the next generation Hummer will look like, tentatively (and imaginatively) called Hummer: H4.

Strawberry papple

From an old interview with George Lucas:

In one of the scripts there is a Wookie planet. It's a jungle planet and there was a whole sequence where the Empire had a little outpost on the Wookie planet and Luke [Skywalker] gets involved with the Wookies and he fights the head Wookie. He wins the fight but he doesn't kill the Wookie and the Wookie says, okay, you are going to be the son of the chief and all that kind of stuff. He rallies the Wookies and the Wookies all attack this imperial base. The imperial base has tanks and all kinds of stuff and the Wookies beat them off, and then Luke and Ben [Kenobi] and Han (Solo] and a bunch of people train the Wookies to fly the fighters, and it is the Wookles that go after the Death Star, not the rebels that were on the planet.

I just like funny hats

I was at work, and I went to download a program called phpMyAdmin. Its web site gave me the option of choosing which country I'd like to download it from, probably with the idea that I'd pick the closest one for the best speeds. I get to make this choice often at work, but since I get bored and my job isn't really speed-intensive, I normally decide to choose a country I'd like to visit one day.

This is honestly one of the highlights of my day.

Today I decided I would be downloading from Moscow, Russia, since I was just in that kind of mood. But it oddly listed Moscow, Russia as being in Europe, which I never knew.

I decided to go ahead and download it from Moscow, Russia, Europe, when suddenly the download failed, and wouldn't start back up. I assume that wherever Moscow, Russia was, it packed up and left for someplace that isn't Europe, and did it before my download finished. Which bothered me because I was looking foward to wearing the funny hat.

So instead, today I'm visiting Paris, France.

And this is how I spend my days.

I just won

I just won four free songs by recomending one blog to another blog, and now I've decided to write about it on my blog.

It's a blogged, blogged world.

Tetricide

It's not even the fact that there are different versions of Tetris, or that they've changed the gameplay in small ways that aren't necessarily better. It's not that they managed to make the instruction manual for Tetris so confusing that it needed a two-page glossary, or even that they then didn't even alphabetize it.

It's the fact that Tetris now has a plot, and Tetris should never ever ever have needed a plot. Someone should kill Alexey Pajitnov just so he can start spinning in his grave.

In case you're curious, your mighty little adventure is this: Six tetrinaughts have been sent out on a mission to unlock the secret of the Tetrion stargates in order to escape your dying Minos homeworld and start terraforming other little tetroid friendly worlds. You play a tetrinaught, I think. You even have your own customizable tetrian avatars, that sit there and watch your falling blocks like a cat watching a dustbunny.

It'd be like opening up a chess tournament with a monologue on the mighty battles of the proud white kings versus the gloomy black knights.

Was there really a point in the redesign when some manager stood up and said "Y'know, I think more people would play Tetris if only they had a story to latch onto." I just really don't understand it.

In related news, I miss Howard & Nester. Here's hoping for a comeback tour.