I leave tomorrow for E3. I have not traveled in two years and I have not been to LA since Allen and I recorded the XO GameShow back in 2002. E3 is supposed to be taking it up a notch from last year's disappointing show.
I'll try to write as much as possible and give you an idea of what I'm up to. Though I am going as part of work, I'm hoping I can namedrop and mention that I know HolyJuan. We'll see if that gets me anywhere.
If you know me and you'll be at the show, drop me a line and we can meet up. Know the secret HolyJuan pass phrase:
I cheat.
I lie.
I steal.
I malign.
You don't know me.
You don't need me.
You can't have me.
You see through me.
We should talk.
We should meet.
We would laugh.
Then I'd leave.
The Real Story of Jesus
Everyone should know that the story you have probably heard of Jesus is really not that correct. Here is the actual story:
Back in 0 when Jesus was born, his parents received some stolen merchandise from three gang members (The Kings of Asia) who asked them to hold on to the stuff and hide it until the tax season was over. Mary pawned the Myrrh, Joseph and some other sheep herders smoked the frankincense and they made haste with the gold.
On the road, Mary and Joseph set up a traveling circus with a side show to try to make money to pay off the Kings of Asia. They put Joseph in a dress as the bearded lady, Mary guessed age/weight while tending to the trained animals (seven seals), and they set their kid Jesus up to do slight of hand and sell the cure-alls.
As he grew up, Jesus got sick of the circus and started his own gang. He’d do anything to get members, even talking to the stinky people and the ones with gross diseases. Free sushi sandwiches brought thousands to his recruitment seminars and Jesus’ buy one jug of wine get twelve free offer was well known throughout the region. More people might have joined the gang, but Jesus only liked certain types of men with which to hang out.
Jesus was a pretty nice guy, but he always seemed focused on his dad's bi-polar disorder. Every story he told would start out fine, but he'd always end up back with his father issues and that someday he'd stand up and tell him how he really felt.
In the end, as the Kings of Asia were closing in, Jesus was visited by Time Travelers from the future who promised to provided him a cryogenic suspension device and convinced him that if he deposited his 30 silver coins in the bank today and waited to pop out in a few thousand years, he would not only have unlimited fortune, but fame as well.
Jesus agreed, paid the money, had a huge dinner to celebrate and then was immediately turned over, by the Time Travelers, to the Romans. Jesus was hung on a cross until dead and tossed in the side of a cliff. The Time Travelers got the guards drunk, stole the body of Jesus and left behind a life sized painting of Jesus that looked almost exactly like him except that he was painted Caucasian.
The Time Travelers slipped the rest of Jesus’ gang a shitload of LSD on unleaven bread and told them that they better not pout and better not cry or Jesus would come back and make with the pestilence. After sprinkling the country side with hundreds of chalices and Spears of Destiny, the Time Travelers disappeared into the sky.
The End
Back in 0 when Jesus was born, his parents received some stolen merchandise from three gang members (The Kings of Asia) who asked them to hold on to the stuff and hide it until the tax season was over. Mary pawned the Myrrh, Joseph and some other sheep herders smoked the frankincense and they made haste with the gold.
On the road, Mary and Joseph set up a traveling circus with a side show to try to make money to pay off the Kings of Asia. They put Joseph in a dress as the bearded lady, Mary guessed age/weight while tending to the trained animals (seven seals), and they set their kid Jesus up to do slight of hand and sell the cure-alls.
As he grew up, Jesus got sick of the circus and started his own gang. He’d do anything to get members, even talking to the stinky people and the ones with gross diseases. Free sushi sandwiches brought thousands to his recruitment seminars and Jesus’ buy one jug of wine get twelve free offer was well known throughout the region. More people might have joined the gang, but Jesus only liked certain types of men with which to hang out.
Jesus was a pretty nice guy, but he always seemed focused on his dad's bi-polar disorder. Every story he told would start out fine, but he'd always end up back with his father issues and that someday he'd stand up and tell him how he really felt.
In the end, as the Kings of Asia were closing in, Jesus was visited by Time Travelers from the future who promised to provided him a cryogenic suspension device and convinced him that if he deposited his 30 silver coins in the bank today and waited to pop out in a few thousand years, he would not only have unlimited fortune, but fame as well.
Jesus agreed, paid the money, had a huge dinner to celebrate and then was immediately turned over, by the Time Travelers, to the Romans. Jesus was hung on a cross until dead and tossed in the side of a cliff. The Time Travelers got the guards drunk, stole the body of Jesus and left behind a life sized painting of Jesus that looked almost exactly like him except that he was painted Caucasian.
The Time Travelers slipped the rest of Jesus’ gang a shitload of LSD on unleaven bread and told them that they better not pout and better not cry or Jesus would come back and make with the pestilence. After sprinkling the country side with hundreds of chalices and Spears of Destiny, the Time Travelers disappeared into the sky.
The End
Double Handicapped Failure
A favored local Mexican restaurant has two handicapped parking spots. Both spots are clearly marked with, well, handicapped handicapped symbols.
This poor guy had his non-working legs cut right off.
This guy can stand, but it looks like his huge bent penis is counterweighted by a hook stuck in his back.
FYI
This poor guy had his non-working legs cut right off.
This guy can stand, but it looks like his huge bent penis is counterweighted by a hook stuck in his back.
FYI
Worst Slide Ever
We went to the park this past weekend and found a newly installed play area. As we walked up, I saw the greatest slide in the world. It was snake-like with several huge curves in it.
My increasingly large butt was too big for it, but both Greg and Ann would shoot down that sucker and hopefully make it to the bottom without incurring the negative setbacks from whiplash.
I sent them to the top to slide down. I put my camera on the highest intensity video setting to capture the high speed decline. I only hope the frame rate was fast enough to capture the moment without blurring their glee filled faces.
Wow. That is the worst slide ever. I'm not sure if they designed it to be a slide or a ladder, but they failed at both. Huge disappointment.
On a positive note, they had two very awesome, carved climbing rocks.
Some of the bitterness went away because of the fun we had on those.
Some.
My increasingly large butt was too big for it, but both Greg and Ann would shoot down that sucker and hopefully make it to the bottom without incurring the negative setbacks from whiplash.
I sent them to the top to slide down. I put my camera on the highest intensity video setting to capture the high speed decline. I only hope the frame rate was fast enough to capture the moment without blurring their glee filled faces.
Wow. That is the worst slide ever. I'm not sure if they designed it to be a slide or a ladder, but they failed at both. Huge disappointment.
On a positive note, they had two very awesome, carved climbing rocks.
Some of the bitterness went away because of the fun we had on those.
Some.
Twins
Sometimes you plan the day ahead what you two should wear.
Sometimes, you call each other that morning and coordinate clothes.
And sometimes you just roll over and say, "Keegan, let's have a twins day."
Sometimes, you call each other that morning and coordinate clothes.
And sometimes you just roll over and say, "Keegan, let's have a twins day."
General Motors CEO announces "Financial problems fixed with one phone call to number on telephone pole sign"
DETROIT, Mi (HJ)- In a surprising turn of events, General Motors Corp. CEO Fritz Henderson announced today that GM would be avoiding bankruptcy and possibly even be retuning the $15.4 billion in federal loans it received. Mark LaNeve, GM vice president of sales, service and marketing, said in a statement, “By golly, it’s a frickin’ miracle.”
While Wall Street’s reaction has been one of shock and surprise, Mr. Henderson said
all it took was a simple call. “I was being driven home at 2:00pm after a long day at the office. I had Westerly take the long way home and in doing so, we passed a telephone pole with a sign stating ‘Fix Your Credit’. I decided to give it a go.” Within a few moments and presses of the keypad, Mr. Henderson was connected with a helpful sales associate named Ramón Greschchi. “In just a few minutes, we were able to restructure GM’s loans and spread the debt out over 3,134,554 credit cards with a 23.9% interest rate."
While many stockholders are wary of the deal, Mr. Henderson was ecstatic about the future of the company and the details of the restructuring, "I’m also getting a free name brand computer with monitor and printer!”
Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/
While Wall Street’s reaction has been one of shock and surprise, Mr. Henderson said
all it took was a simple call. “I was being driven home at 2:00pm after a long day at the office. I had Westerly take the long way home and in doing so, we passed a telephone pole with a sign stating ‘Fix Your Credit’. I decided to give it a go.” Within a few moments and presses of the keypad, Mr. Henderson was connected with a helpful sales associate named Ramón Greschchi. “In just a few minutes, we were able to restructure GM’s loans and spread the debt out over 3,134,554 credit cards with a 23.9% interest rate."While many stockholders are wary of the deal, Mr. Henderson was ecstatic about the future of the company and the details of the restructuring, "I’m also getting a free name brand computer with monitor and printer!”
Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/
Google Voice Transcription Service Experiment: What I Learned
A few months ago, I signed up for a free Grand Central phone number. A wonderful service where a user could receive phone calls on their personal phone without giving out their private number and manage them in various ways that would be useful for selling items on Craig’s List or for internet guys, like myself, to pull pranks and scam Nigerians. Recently, Grand Central was purchased by Google, renamed Google Voice and several features were added. One of those features was message transcription where Google would turn your caller's voice into text.
Yesterday, I put my Google Voice phone number (614-429-4365 or 614-GAY-IDOL) on reddit.com and asked people to call my number and leave a message. I said I would copy and paste what Google Voice transcribed and then I would type in what I heard below the transcription so that we could all compare the two. I did not expect the flood of voice mails nor the varied, creative messages.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Google Voice does not like compressed audio or you yelling about your privates
If Google does not like what you said due to background noise or screaming or a bad connection, it will state, “Transcript not available.” Before I started receiving a call every minute, I would listen to the “Transcript not available” messages to see why they would not come through. Sometimes it was because some dude would scream, “PENIS PENIS PENIS!” A few times it would be because someone was holding up their phone to the television so that I could hear a line from Monty Python or Family Guy. Most the time it was because their phone sounded compressed, like they were using Skype or an internet phone. I could hear them fine, but if they sounded like they were calling from the bottom of a fish tank and Google didn’t like it.
2. Google likes you to say “hi” and “bye.”
The Google people are pretty smart because they assume that most phone calls start with a “hello” and end with a “bye”. Whatever logarithm or logic chart they use, it makes some very broad assumptions. I assume it would work with a lot of phone calls, but not when you are dealing with people dropping “The Prince of Bel-Air” in your message box.
Speaking of Bel-Air, you must check out the translation tanscript by Google and the audio file created by jayssite that follows immediately after. Brilliant work, jayssite.
3. Google Voice is good with numbers
If you can leave most your messages as numbers, you’ll love the accuracy!
4. Google Voice wants to save your marriage
I listened to a message that said, “Cindy, you dirty whore. I'm divorcing you.” Google felt compassion and transcribed it as: cindy and very on the work something out bye
5. Google allowed callers to sneak through
Late in the afternoon as my voice mailbox was on fire, calls started to come in on my cell phone with the number 000-000-0000. I let them go to voicemail and when I checked, the messages were the same quotes from the "The Big Lebowski" I’d been receiving all day. This was disturbing because they were going into my personal voice mail which gives my real name. Google Voice is supposed to give you an opportunity to remain anonymous so that the people from the local roofing company you pissed off on consumerist.com can’t track you down and flatten your tires. I sent Google a note and hope they fix that.
6. Google Voice believes in conspiracies
Message: 9-11 was an inside job. Wake up sheeple.
Transcript: nine eleven with the inside job we cox you pull
Truthers like Google Voice. “You can clearly hear Google Voice saying “pull.”
7. Google Voice doesn’t think you should swear
Message: What the fuck.
Transcript: what the phone
We think Google Voice did the TV version of “Snakes on a Plane” (via Vortex22222)
“I've had it with these monkey-phoning snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”
8. Google Voice gets it right… rarely
I’m not going to beat Google Voice up that badly. They are in a kind of beta testing. But here was the first message it got 100% correct: hi honey
The second was:
Transcript not available.
9. Google Voice lets you post messages on line
This creepy message is interesting for two reasons: one, because it is creepy. And two, because I never though of the word “beauty” as B O T. When Google voice gets something stuck in its head, it runs with it. If it hears a letter, it listens for more. This is also to show you that Google Voice allows you to post messages on your website.
Transcript by Google: B O T as in the heart mobile to work around that
The actual message:
10. Well, here are some things that you can learn from all this:
a. I do not work for Google
b. I got over 500 voice mails
c. 50% of them were “Transcript not available.”
d. There are a lot of funny people out there
e. There are just as many crazy people
f. Most spoken word in the messages seemed to be “um.”
g. No, I do not have any gVoice invites.
h. No, I will not hurry up and post your message
i. No, I will not post your political opinion
j. Yes, I am gay (the colleague one is day)
k. The whispering people were the creepiest
l. There were some very depressing voices out there: like the girl who got deodorant for a birthday present from her boss.
m. I did not listen to all the messages. After the first 50 “Transcript not available” messages, I quit listening and just started deleting. Sorry to all of you that did not get posted.
n. Yes, Google Voice does track your phone number and logs it in the inbox.
o. No, I deleted all the messages except the one in this e-mail.
p. Thanks to reddit.com and all the redditors that helped with this completely unscientific experiment.
q. Yes, I picked 614-gay-idol on purpose
r. No, I will not be using the whole alphabet
Yesterday, I put my Google Voice phone number (614-429-4365 or 614-GAY-IDOL) on reddit.com and asked people to call my number and leave a message. I said I would copy and paste what Google Voice transcribed and then I would type in what I heard below the transcription so that we could all compare the two. I did not expect the flood of voice mails nor the varied, creative messages.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Google Voice does not like compressed audio or you yelling about your privates
If Google does not like what you said due to background noise or screaming or a bad connection, it will state, “Transcript not available.” Before I started receiving a call every minute, I would listen to the “Transcript not available” messages to see why they would not come through. Sometimes it was because some dude would scream, “PENIS PENIS PENIS!” A few times it would be because someone was holding up their phone to the television so that I could hear a line from Monty Python or Family Guy. Most the time it was because their phone sounded compressed, like they were using Skype or an internet phone. I could hear them fine, but if they sounded like they were calling from the bottom of a fish tank and Google didn’t like it.
2. Google likes you to say “hi” and “bye.”
The Google people are pretty smart because they assume that most phone calls start with a “hello” and end with a “bye”. Whatever logarithm or logic chart they use, it makes some very broad assumptions. I assume it would work with a lot of phone calls, but not when you are dealing with people dropping “The Prince of Bel-Air” in your message box.
Speaking of Bel-Air, you must check out the translation tanscript by Google and the audio file created by jayssite that follows immediately after. Brilliant work, jayssite.
3. Google Voice is good with numbers
If you can leave most your messages as numbers, you’ll love the accuracy!
4. Google Voice wants to save your marriage
I listened to a message that said, “Cindy, you dirty whore. I'm divorcing you.” Google felt compassion and transcribed it as: cindy and very on the work something out bye
5. Google allowed callers to sneak through
Late in the afternoon as my voice mailbox was on fire, calls started to come in on my cell phone with the number 000-000-0000. I let them go to voicemail and when I checked, the messages were the same quotes from the "The Big Lebowski" I’d been receiving all day. This was disturbing because they were going into my personal voice mail which gives my real name. Google Voice is supposed to give you an opportunity to remain anonymous so that the people from the local roofing company you pissed off on consumerist.com can’t track you down and flatten your tires. I sent Google a note and hope they fix that.
6. Google Voice believes in conspiracies
Message: 9-11 was an inside job. Wake up sheeple.
Transcript: nine eleven with the inside job we cox you pull
Truthers like Google Voice. “You can clearly hear Google Voice saying “pull.”
7. Google Voice doesn’t think you should swear
Message: What the fuck.
Transcript: what the phone
We think Google Voice did the TV version of “Snakes on a Plane” (via Vortex22222)
“I've had it with these monkey-phoning snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”
8. Google Voice gets it right… rarely
I’m not going to beat Google Voice up that badly. They are in a kind of beta testing. But here was the first message it got 100% correct: hi honey
The second was:
Transcript not available.
9. Google Voice lets you post messages on line
This creepy message is interesting for two reasons: one, because it is creepy. And two, because I never though of the word “beauty” as B O T. When Google voice gets something stuck in its head, it runs with it. If it hears a letter, it listens for more. This is also to show you that Google Voice allows you to post messages on your website.
Transcript by Google: B O T as in the heart mobile to work around that
The actual message:
10. Well, here are some things that you can learn from all this:
a. I do not work for Google
b. I got over 500 voice mails
c. 50% of them were “Transcript not available.”
d. There are a lot of funny people out there
e. There are just as many crazy people
f. Most spoken word in the messages seemed to be “um.”
g. No, I do not have any gVoice invites.
h. No, I will not hurry up and post your message
i. No, I will not post your political opinion
j. Yes, I am gay (the colleague one is day)
k. The whispering people were the creepiest
l. There were some very depressing voices out there: like the girl who got deodorant for a birthday present from her boss.
m. I did not listen to all the messages. After the first 50 “Transcript not available” messages, I quit listening and just started deleting. Sorry to all of you that did not get posted.
n. Yes, Google Voice does track your phone number and logs it in the inbox.
o. No, I deleted all the messages except the one in this e-mail.
p. Thanks to reddit.com and all the redditors that helped with this completely unscientific experiment.
q. Yes, I picked 614-gay-idol on purpose
r. No, I will not be using the whole alphabet
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