ronaldhennessy’s Wonderful World of INTERNET

On Wednesday, November 19th, Microsoft will release a brand new version of the Xbox 360 “dashboard”. This interface allows you to interact with people, play games, videos and music using the Xbox Live Internet service. While the interface was slick and polished, increasing competition from Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii might have forced them to shake things up as sales were falling flat for their Xbox 360 console. Did Microsoft succeed in making the best videogame experience ever or will the competition sleep easy at night? It will offer my NON-expert, opinion from an actual Joe the Gamer (or should I say Ronald the Gamer). Read the rest of this entry »

by The Consumerist

Sometimes, you have to trust your instinct whenever things fall apart.

If you have been following me (and YOU SHOULD), I have been out of work for awhile. It’s no surprise since the economy is total shambles (something that Obama can’t fix all by himself). I figured that I would go out and get me a crappy retail job to keep me from falling even further in debt. Miraculously, electronics retailer Circuit City was somehow HIRING for the holidays. Yes, I knew that “The City” was in pretty bad shape (but what retail establishment isn’t these days?), but even in the worst case scenario, I would try and hold on until the very end and eventually land a (hopefully) better position some place else. Also, the location that I applied to was doing pretty good business in the Firedog division. Infact, sales for Firedog was number one in the whole company.

Good news can always be deceiving.

If you have been under a rock lately or have been bombarded by election coverage, Circuit City has decided to shut down 155+ stores across America. With it’s stock price now worthless, chapter 11 bankruptcy is the only card that CC can play right now. Now, I won’t be a jerk and badmouth the 1,000’s of employees who will eventually be looking for work after the stores close, but you have to facepalm so hard for the inept management that fired several higher paying salespeople and hired inexperienced, cheaper replacements or the bonus that the execs got after the stock and revenue started to free fall.

Going back to my experience. About 3 weeks ago, I applied for the “Firedog” in-store PC installation service. I went to fill out the paperwork and met my “new” co-workers. I was slated to start on November 4th and expected to work lots of hours on Black Friday. Then, the ship begins to sink. I knew that all regular employees had a “kickoff” holiday meeting on Sunday the 2nd. Funny that I wasn’t invited for some reason. So, I went to the outlets (since I’m cheap) with my brother to pick up some dress shoes. All of a sudden, I get a phone call from one of the managers and he tells me that the store, which was NUMBER ONE in Firedog tech sales in the entire freakin’ chain is closing! Despite the closing, somehow they still offered me to stick around, although I wouldn’t be doing much in PC installations or selling services. Instead, I would be apart of the liquidation crew! While I had the potential of getting a severance, it would be a pittance anyway. Luckily, fate steps in and sees you through and I found another job that pays more than CC.

As a result, I’m kind of lucky. Unlike most of my peers, I’m aware of things that affect me outside my world. I bet those Circuit City employees were in for a rude awakening once they heard the news. If you are working for a company that is not doing strong and the signs are obvious, get your head out from under and prepare yourself for the worst!

by Jeffrey Guterman

“We may not get there in one year or even one term,” he said. “But America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you — we as a people will get there.”

Thank you America for making me proud to live in this country again.

I voted.

by Sterin

After months of “Straight Talk”ing “Mavericks” who want “Country First” and “Hope”fuls wanting to “Believe” in “Change”, YOU the citizen of the United States of America get to choose who will lead the most powerful nation in the world for the next 4 years. If you read my Twitter (and YOU SHOULD), I am overwhelmingly in favor of Senator Barack Obama, but for today I’m going to lay it down for you non-partisan style. This especially goes out to those young kids. Even if you missed the registration date, you can still support your candidate by volunteering. Hell, even the bastion of INTERNET debauchery that is 4chan wants you to get out the vote!

If you are already registered to vote, that’s great! Now you need to find out WHERE you need to vote.

Still lost?

You can look up your address on where to actually vote without leaving this page. No excuses this time!

Now that you found your polling place, be prepared to wait. Bring reading materials, a DS or PSP or bring out the Football. Many folks were able to vote early in some states and had to wait for hours. If you managed to rise up when the polls open, you will probably have minimal waiting time…but if you have to work…well that’s another story. Did you know that in some states you can take work off to vote without any repercussions? Yes, it’s true! And some states will give you PAID TIME off to vote for a few hours! Remember, not EVERY state does this, so be sure to check out this map and find out if you can do that sort of thing. If you can’t take off from work, you can take a look at the polling hours for your state and when they close.

In case you forgot, you have to vote on Tuesday, November 4th. Your vote will not count if you show up after the polls close or arrive on November 5th or later. (It’s surprising that some people do not know this. I talked to a young guy about this and he thought it was Wednesday!)

Let’s get it started! Vote!

Much of INTERNET has been buzzing over the possibility of new MacBooks over the past few months. Many rumor sites leaked images of what would be the new mobile computer from Cupertino’s finest. Some even said that Apple would release a cheaper, $800 MacBook as the sub $1,000 laptop market is growing. The sub $1,000 laptop didn’t appear, but a completely revamped MacBook AND MacBook Pro were unwrapped this past week. So, does Apple’s latest laptop revision live up to the hype or does it crash and burn? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s unfortunate, my baseball team The New York Yankees will not be playing for a 27th World Series Championship, but at least the Boston Red Sox will be joining them this year. Matt Garza (Yes, his last name begins with GAR) pitched an awesome game and as a result the Tampa Bay Rays will be in the World Series for the first time in their existence. While it’s cool to see the Rays in the series, I really could care less about them winning it or not. The only reason why me and many Yankees fans rooted for them is we wanted to see Boston fail HARD. After the unfortunate events of 2004 and the 3-1 comeback in 2007, seeing the Red Sox come back from 7-0 in the 7th of game 5 brought back horrible memories. This time, game 7 would not be lucky as inexperience won out.

So, Tampa Bay is getting to become quite a city of champions lately this decade. First it was the NFL’s Bucs in 2003, some hockey team from the nhl in 2004, will it be the Rays in 08? While they are not geographically in the same area, I hope that the Magic eventually get the golden touch of a Larry O’Brien trophy.

And now for your moment of zen…

by whiskeyboytx

Just a little reminder for those that live in New York State. If you haven’t noticed, general elections are right around the corner on November 4th. If you intend to vote for the first time, you need to act today! You must have your voter registration postmarked by Friday October 10th, which is TODAY if you are reading this. If you have moved from a different county, you must register again. You have no right to complain about things going on in our government if you don’t vote.

If you are out of state, you can check out this special Google Maps page and you can look to see if you’re registered or not

Voting apathy is lame, don’t be lazy.

I normally don’t devote blog posts to individual failures, but I felt my insight could not be held back any further. Much has been said about Christian Weston Chandler on Encyclopedia Dramatica. In fact, so much  has been said about him, the amount of words devoted to his entry outnumbers the entry about the ongoing anonymous protest against Scientology. The discussion about the Chris-Chan article is equivalent to a 250 page book. At the same time, the saga has brought me lulz and remorse. Could Christian Weston Chandler, a.k.a “Chris-Chan” or CWC possibly be the biggest idiot ever unearthed by INTERNET? Read the rest of this entry »

So Long, Farewell....

Another Anime convention comes to a close. I am freakin’ tired of walking all over the place and sleeping a total of 7 hours the entire weekend. The organizers just HAD to screw with my sleep patterns by putting the Rie Tanaka panel and Autograph signing on a Sunday. Sunday is for sleep, for Christian worship, for hangovers and for football, not an awesome panel featuring an awesome voice actress from Japan.

Still, it was a duty of mine to show up. Read the rest of this entry »