softpixels.net

Queuing Etiquette II: This Time It's Personal!

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:00:30 GMT

In my rant about queuing etiquette a few days ago I mentioned that Aldi needed a post of its own. Now, since I'm not prepared to speak about anything else of note that's happened over the last few days but don't want my blog to stagnate, I figured I'd supply that post.

Aldi is a supermarket chain in Australia and, I think, New Zealand. It is designed to be no frills. Almost every product they sell is made by them. They don't provide plastic bags - and if you buy one from them (as an independent product) or supply your own, they don't fill it for you.

However, their checkouts are a bit different in order to accomodate this kind of thing.

Even if you're only buying a few things, you're supposed to use a trolley, and there are signs around the stores reminding you of this. Each checkout has a groove into which you can slot your trolley so that it is easily within reach for you to stuff your goods into it as the checkout operator scans them. If you're not buying anything fragile, the checkout operator is usually willing to toss your stuff in for you as they scan. You can then move over to a long bench and pack your stuff into bags or boxes.

But...

Women, usually those in their late 30s or early 40s, have a tendency to totally miss the point. They'll stand at the end of their checkout and bag their stuff, which is annoying because you then have to wait; it is even more annoying because nine times out of ten the checkout person just keeps scanning even though there's no room to put your stuff because the woman is still there! (Unless it is the one at my nearest Aldi who I suspect has a huuuuuuuuge crush on me. He's always lovely.)

It is so annoying. What makes it worse is that the place is laid out to standards of efficiency, so your entire shopping experience is Go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-g-g-o-og-ogog-og-go-go with the "g-g-o-og-ogog-og" part being where the manky bitches get in the way.

(Pardon my language, but, you know, seriously. If you don't have some sort of mental illness or physical or cognitive disability, you've got no excuse here.)

Just... gah!

And Aldi's pasta salad is spicy. Double gah!

Kamen Rider DCD / Samurai Sentai Shinkenger Anticipation

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:37:58 GMT

Even though I've known for weeks that this was coming, seeing the Shinkengers in the next episode teaser at the end of Kamen Rider DCD Episode 23 still made me literally shiver with anticipation.

I kind of wish I hadn't known about it beforehand - it would have blown my mind. :)

Sadly, the anticipation fades quickly because... you know... DCD.

I know that Tsukasa will seem to not know anything for the first two or three minutes and will then suddenly know many things about the world and will recognise the Shinkengers on sight, and this won't seem to odd to anyone in the show, because this is what almost always happens in DCD.

I love Yuusuke. Daiki is kinda cool from time to time. The plots are usually bursting with potential. But the writing on that show is just plain horrendous.

And hang on, isn't Super Sentai meant to be one solid continuity with inconsistencies we're just supposed to ignore (as DekaMaster put it when asked by his team about his snout post-henshin: "It's best we don't ask those questions.")? In that case, Tsukasa's assertion that it is a world without Kamen Riders is just plain wrong, because we known Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Amazon and Kamen Rider V3, at the very least, exist in the Super Sentai universe (JAKQ VS GoRanger).

Bah. I really, really want to like DCD more than I do, but they make it hard. Same with Shinkenger... but I love that one anyway! :-)

I'm going to wander away now, so I don't have to worry about these episodes until they've actually, you know, aired and stuff...

Because cheese is nature's fruit, after all...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:25:07 GMT

I just watched Merry Christmas, Drake and Josh (finally!) and was struck by the realisation of how much I missed Helen and Crazy Steve...

... and you have to love a kids' movie which doesn't shy away from completely unsubtle jokes about what happens to pretty boys in prison.

... and what isn't to love about a happy Christmas movie which features a grumpy teenager best known for having played an adolescent serial killer?

... and when the hell did this happen?

I'm assured that that is, in fact, a pic of Drake Bell from earlier this year, but my spider-sense is tingling on that, and the pic is too small to really know for sure. If so... "Zac Efron? Who?" :)

Anyway, I do miss Drake & Josh. Sigh.

Queuing Etiquette

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:57:17 GMT

When you queue in a shop, there are basic courtesies which should be common sense and vary depending on the shop. These aren't you being nice to people, these are you following the rules. As an example that will make sense to everyone, you don't slow your car down when people are crossing the road in front of you in order to be nice, you do it because that's the rule.

People seem to miss this sort of thinking when doing such things as queuing in a shop.

In a supermarket, you don't have much room to wiggle. They tend to have channeled checkouts and once you've queued, you're pretty much locked in. You have your stuff on the conveyer thing, people have lined up behind you, you're stuck. Supermarkets require you to pick a queue and stick to it, regardless of whether remaining in the queue is in your best interest or that of other people. The best you can do is let the person behind you go ahead of you if they have fewer items or seem strung out - and that is just being nice and has nothing to do with rules or etiquette.

However, in a shop with a counter that you approach, which may have one or more registers on it (such as at McDonald's), there is definite etiquette. You do not simply find the register with the fewest people in front of it and join that line, regardless of who else is waiting. You form a single queue (or blobby mass of waiting customers) and when one of the people behind the counter says "Next please!" (or, more likely, stares aimlessly into space and then sneers at you because you haven't approached, as you know that half the time you do so they say "Just a moment, I'm busy." and you have to go back to the queue anyway) you branch off to that available counter.

That sounds confusing, and because many people apparently need a diagram to get this into their skulls, I've whipped one up:

The one at the top is the correct, polite, (what should be) common sense way of queuing. It means that you are served in the order you arrived (and you can always let someone ahead of you if you know they're just there for something minor), rather than just having the luck of getting in behind the pack of twenty people who turned out to be there together and left all at once, rather than individually queued as other people suspected. It also means that if a new register opens, those who have been there longer get to move over first, rather than being penalised for having been waiting in line already.

In the past few months, however, even the second (wrong!) way of doing things hasn't seemed to work!

I was at Hungry Jack's on Swanston St in Melbourne. The store is very wide, so the correct method of queuing doesn't work; instead, there are two clear channels, so you can form two main queues which then branch off. Despite this, everyone still just lines up in front of one specific register.

Because everyone else does this and it was very clear that I'd never, ever get served unless I did it too, I queued in that way. It was very clear which register I was in front of. Yet someone stood less than a foot to my right (even though there was several people in line behind me already), and when I was next in line he stepped forward. Naurally, this meant he almost bumped into me. He yelled at me, threw his hands in the air, stared at the girl behind the counter, and then said "Fine, I won't bother then!" and stormed out.

Um... what?

The only explanation I can think of is that he thought I was one queue further to the left than I was, and that all those people in line behind me were just really dumb and didn't bother getting into the empty queue next to us. Seriously, he was standing between two registers. Lunacy.

In a similar case, I went to McDonald's on Swanston St in Melbourne. A woman joined the queue to my left. No-one was queued to my right. I had been queuing almost three times as long as the new arrival. A new register opened to my right and asked for the next waiting customer. The woman to my left tried to cut across me as I moved over, and then stopped and stared at me as I naturally reached the counter ahead of her, then sooked and walked off.

Again... what could she possibly have been thinking?

Yesterday, I was at KFC at Highpoint Shopping Centre (in Melbourne! Who would have guessed?). An older woman approached from my right and asked me which queue I was in: "This one?" or "That one?". I explained I was in "This one." and indicated the queue and the register it belonged to. She snapped in a very rude tone "So you mean that one?" and indicated my queue, then joined the one to my right (the original "That one."). I then said, clearly, "Do not speak to me that way." and continued waiting as she muttered stuff about people not being clear or lining up properly (as a result, people near her walked off).

She was clearly a loon.

But then... oh, but then!... I remembered having gone to KFC on Swanston St in Melbourne and having a girl do the line-cheating (ie, jumping in to a suddenly shorter line rather than letting people who had waited longer go first). She then stood across two registers, so I had to call over her to place my order. When I did get beside her, she kept swaying against me and whacking me with a bag twice her own width.

When I then got to Flinders St Railway Station and went through the ticket validation queue (which are similar to the turnstile things in New York subway stations, if that helps any Americans picture them) she couldn't feed her ticket through (because she kept jamming it in, rather than letting it feed), held her bag horizontally so that it blocked the barrier next to her (mine!), then couldn't get through the barrier because the idea of turning her bag to the side didn't occur to her (further delaying me) and then had her bag block my access to the escalators.

Which was, in the space of ten minutes, half a dozen instances of queuing abuse.

Le sigh.

What's even worse are people who cross the road (or reach the end of escalators) and then just stop. If you're crossing the road behind them then you better just get used to standing on the road, because they're blocking the footpath and that's that! At the end of escalator, who cares if the thing is moving under your feet, people are pressing against you and there is no way to move around the person because it has walls? They want to stop and that's their prerogative.

And to the women in their 30s who buy something, then lay out their purse and slowly and careful replace any cards they've used and place each denomination of change into a pre-selected slot: why should you care that a dozen people could have been served in that time? Why should I expect you to move to the side and then do that? (And why does this happen primarily in toy shops?)

Aldi and its incompetent queuers need their own post, I think!

Jungle Fury Micro Megazords Sets B and C

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:12:41 GMT

To my surprise, Toys 'R' Us actually seems to be carrying a proper line of Power Rangers Jungle Fury toys, including the Micro Megazords.

I was able to pick up Set B and Set C today, and with those purchased I now have a complete set.

Set B
Elephant, Shark and Bat

Set C
Lion, Jaguar and Puma

Now it's onto the Shinkenger origami candy toys for each school assignment I successfully complete. :)

Random phone call of the moment...

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:22:52 GMT

... featured my sister ringing just a few moments ago to let me know my six-year-old autistic nephew is obsessed with Diaclone.

Not Transformers. Not Go-Bots. Not Machine Men.

Diaclone.

Oy vey. I guess I should find a copy of Scramble City 2 to help bridge the gap between the Dialone commercials and Transformers...

night-jaeger.net is back up...

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:34:12 GMT

With the upcoming release of Assembled! Vol.2, which carries a link to my website in my little author bio blurb thingy, I figured it was time to actually put something up at that URL.

night-jaeger.net has for years been my catch-all domain, and I have rarely had an actual site there - it has just been used to store files linked to on other sites.

Now there's a placeholder! You can click a link which takes you right back here! Everyone should go do that now. :-)

I'm just not interesting enough to justify an actual site about me and my doings anymore, sadly...

Internet woes...

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:51:48 GMT

Since Friday, June 26th, my Internet connection has been dropping out every thirty seconds or so. I've had a few moments of reliability (like right now), but they've been rare.

I've emailed my ISP's tech support several times, but they only responded to my first email. Of course, they simply suggested an "isolation test", and when I replied to say I'd done that and nothing was different, I received no reply. In the meantime, my connection has been next to useless for eight and a half days.

I'm not a happy camper - not now that I have important things I wish to blog about, but pretty much can't because the connection is being a pain!

Le sigh.

I'm going to demand some sort of compensation if the problem hasn't been resolved by Monday morning, because damn it.

The Attack of "Critiquer"!

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:05:40 GMT

An ad on Australian television station Ten at the moment announces a "food critiquer" as a guest on a program this coming Sunday, June 28th.

Sadly, there is no such thing. A person who "critiques" (if one actually does - more on that below) is a critic. If you're a fan of obsolete uses of English, you might call them a critique, but you'd sound a bit nuffy. So, yes, they could get away with "food critique" and sound silly; "food critic" would be correct; but "food critiquer" doesn't exist in this or any other language, obsolete or not.

As for using critiques as a verb... meh.

Americans do it - "the essay was critiqued by the teacher", "a beta reader critiques a writer's fanfiction" - but still, more than half of Americans surveyed in recent years don't accept its use as a verb in that way. A person who offers or provides a critique (more on its use as a noun shortly) is a critic.

So where did "critique" even come from, as a noun?

The ego of pretentious twits, that's where.

Originally, a criticism (or, its verb form, criticise) meant to offer an opinion or to analyse. This could be by praising something, being neutral, or offering a negative opinion or suggesting improvement. However, some people began to see this term as being exclusively negative - hence why nine times out of ten the word "critical" is used as a bad thing. "You're always critical!" seems to only be uttered when you're having a go at someone for offering a negative opinion or pointing out flaws, but it can also be used to mean "You always say nice things when you offer an opinion of my work or behaviour!"

With this in mind, pretentious folks who think they're really smart but are actually quite dense because they clearly don't understand the meaning of criticism came up with critique, as a noun. Many websites and half-rate literary analysis texts will tell you that this is, essentially, criticism where the critic's goal is to improve something - what we used to call constructive criticism.

I am happy to accept critique as a noun, because I am kind of stuck with it. I don't use it, but I won't tell off others because they do.

Even so, "food critiquer" is nonsense language and we should all write to Network Ten to complain about it!

Transformers: Universe Countdown and Transformers: Animated Activators Bulkhead

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:25:38 GMT

This week, I got Transformers: Animated Activators Bulkhead and Transformers: Universe Countdown.

In my toy continuity, this little Bulkhead isn't a small regular Transformer, he's a big Micromaster! :-)

However...

For those not in the know, the original Countdown was the leader of the Autobot Micromasters. He transformed into something resembling a lunar rover (with a very similar robot mode to that shown above, at least colour- and wheel-placement-wise). He came with a big blue mobile rocket launching base (much like his vehicle mode above) which transformed into a Micromaster headquarters and to which an included space rocket (which could carry one Micromaster) or Galaxy Shuttle could be attached.

This is clearly a homage to that toy, and you're a fool if you think otherwise.

In my continuity, Countdown was killed by the Decepticon medic-cum-demigod, Firestar. I haven't yet determined how he might come back in this new body, but he will. :)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:39:34 GMT

I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last night with zheddy and a few other people who, to my knowledge, aren't on Dreamwidth (or LiveJournal).

To say that I did not care for it would be an understatement. Those who have heard me speak about the first live-action Transformers film know I hated that; compared to this, the first film was a masterpiece, an instant classic.

Believe it or not, my dislike of the films has nothing to do with the fact that the Transformers themselves are entirely different to the 1980s versions I adored to begin with (and anyone who makes that argument about me will cop an earful, because I like all forms of Transformers except the live-action, so it makes little sense).

The film's plot had more inconsistencies and holes in it than there were literal holes in the early Shia LaBeouf film of that name.

Let's look at a few!

The AllSpark gives Transformers life, correct? This is why I never understood why Sam sticking it in Megatron's chest in the first film would kill him (I can speculate, but the film didn't even offer a hint, so any speculation is unfounded). If having the AllSpark in his chest killed him - let's say, by overload - how, then, did inserting another piece of the AllSpark in his chest bring him back to life?
Why did the US and the Autobots just dump Megatron's body in the ocean? Why not chop it up into thousands of pieces first?
Why were humans part of NEST's field team? All they did was scream and get blown up.
Speaking of which, why didn't the green dump-truck Constructicon just run over Leo and Agent Simmons in Egypt, rather than combining into Devastator and trying to suck them up? Also, how am I supposed to believe that suction which can pull the walls off a caravan a) wouldn't pull the caravan along too, or at least pull it apart; or b) would be weak enough that humans closer to it than the caravan could outrun it?
Oh, wasn't it lucky the US Navy just happened to be testing an experimental energy weapon near Egypt?
Question: if the big Sun-killing machine (odd, why do alien machines call stars "suns"?) could be destroyed by a single shot from Optimus Prime, why didn't the ancient Primes just blow it up, rather than sacrifice themselves to hide the Matrix? Or, why didn't the US Navy use its big gun on it?
Supplementary question: Why couldn't six Primes kill the Fallen, but Optimus could?
Why could Megatron and Jetfire be brought back using AllSpark pieces, but no-one thought to try that on Optimus?
Why did Ironhide seem to have a British accent, but said things such as "ass" (instead of "arse")?
Why couldn't Jetfire (or the Fallen) find the Tomb of the Primes? It was hardly brain surgery, and they had millennia. They at least knew roughly where it was - they could have torn the place up, or even, I dunno, scanned for metal traces, or the Matrix's energy?
If the Matrix of Leadership had to be "earned" by Sam, why could the Fallen just take it? Shouldn't it have fallen apart in his hands, as it did for Sam, until he "earned" it?
Why did the Fallen just sit in his big chair near Saturn until now? Why not help in the first movie?
When did Megatron learn English? He had no chance to up until the end of the first film, but lo and behold, as soon as he's brought back to life he can speak it.
Why did Soundwave speak English? Why did Starscream and Megatron speak English when alone? I thought perhaps that was just for our benefit - that they were speaking Cybetronian, but it was played in English so we'd follow it - but if that was the case, why did Starscream speak Cybertronian in the last forty minutes of the film, with subtitles?

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

Beyond that, it was just stupid. A friend told me that Michael Bay said recently that he doesn't set out to make "good" films, he just wants to appeal to teenage boys (which naturally means he thinks teenage boys don't like "good" films, but that's another issue entirely). What kind of skewed male teenage stereotype does he use to measure this? I saw it with two teenage boys and they shared my concerns without prompting.

I guess I could see some appeal to a particular stereotype. We've got an uncool tech dork who lives in his parents' home probably masturbating to pictures of Megan Fox. I am willing to bet that's a large portion of the film's audience. But look! This dork got to get with Megan Fox (and another "hot" girl - Alice - went after him now AND WE SAW HER KNICKERS *GIGGLE* coz OMG I've never seen such things before except online HAHA) and befriended an alien race AND became the key to an evil race's mad schemes SO IT IS OKAY BEING A LOSER BECAUSE ONE DAY I MIGHT END UP JUST LIKE HIM!! And golly gee, my parents suck because, like, they don't understand me AT ALL, and his parents were weird so that's like proof that my parents are, too? Like, y'know? And hahahahaha that tiny Transformer humped Mikaela's leg that was random but it's humping so it's cool HAHAHA.

Oy vey.

IF THE DECEPTICONS NEEDED SAM'S BRAIN, WHY DID THEY SPEND THE SECOND HALF OF THE FILM SHOOTING MAJOR EXPLOSIVE PROJECTILES AT HIM?

The film's only moment that vaguely resembles the funnies is when Leo comes back after storming off in a panic and says "Sorry about before, I think I was having a panic attack." to which Mudflap (or Skids, it is unclear which is which) replies "Yeah, because you're a pussy." a BOO-YEAH! and a high five between the twins would have capped that off nicely. :)

HOW DID JETFIRE EVEN GET OLD, IF HE WAS ALREADY DEACTIVATED AND IN THE MUSEUM? WAS HE ALREADY OLD WHEN THEY PUT HIM THERE? AND WHAT, THE MUSEUM PEOPLE JUST FOUND A RANDOM PLANE AND DISPLAYED IT WITHOUT KNOWING ITS ORIGIN?

WHY DID JOSH DUHAMEL'S CHARACTER REFER TO THE THREE ARCEE MOTORCYCLES AS "THE ARCEE TWINS"?

The hell, guys! THE HELL.

Fire-2...

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:58:15 GMT

... of Tomica Hero Rescue Fire is, in real life, a champion yo-yo artist.

I kid you not.

And here I was, thinking I couldn't adore him any more than I already did!

Fanfiction: "But it's pink and smells like fish..."

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:52:49 GMT

Gah. I've been missing dorkishavenger's Shinkenger boy slash fics, and she seems to be (quite justifiably!) stressed at the moment, so I thought I'd go for the triple-header and actually try writing fanfic for the first time in years, cheer dorkishavenger up and do something funny at the same time...

Title: "But it's pink and smells like fish..."
Fandom: Samurai Sentai Shinkenger
Rating: PG

"Chiaki!" Takeru exclaimed as he slid open the door to Chiaki's room. "That is not what Genta's Sushi Disc is for!"

I have my Internet back!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:53:46 GMT

I exceeded my bandwidth allowance last week and was throttled down to a 56k connection until midnight last night, when we switched into the new billing month and everything reset. Yes, technically I was still online, but very few of the websites I visit were functional at that speed - Dreamwidth, for example, timed out without displaying any content other than the page title in the title bar!

I think it should be law that every site with more than 1,000 users has to offer a scaled-down dial-up or mobile Internet option...

Kids and medicine

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:04:38 GMT

I am presently babysitting my four-year-old middle niece (the others being eight and three). She's a tad under the weather, and has been prescribed (what I believe to be unnecessary) medicine.

It's your typical pinkish viscous stuff, with your traditional medicine smell.

She really doesn't want to drink it.

I remember feeling that way as a kid, but for the life of me I can't remember what would work to get me to take it. She is slowly sipping it - with apple juice in-between in order to get rid of the taste - but both our lives would be much easier if she just drank all four mililitres in one go!

Capsule Gattai Shinken-Oh, ShinkenGreen and more!

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:42:31 GMT

My Capsule Gattai Shinken-Oh arrived today! Despite being randomly packed in boxes of eight, I got a complete set of five plus an extra shishi origami, kuma origami and "tortoise" origami (red, green and pink) which zheddy is planning to buy from me.

They are really cool, especially ryuu origami, who easily folds up into his more compact form. So does "tortoise" origami. The others look like they can, but I'm unclear how, and the instructions only really help with forming Shinken-Oh. They also come in capsules, which remind me of the balls Hurricanger's Sepuujin fires from its chest, so I'm keeping them. :)

They are all adorable and look like they have very similar articulation to their on-screen buddies; the only real downside is that they have stickers. I usually don't apply stickers both because I often misalign them and because they inevitably end up peeling (I actually play with my toys!) but these fellows look so much prettier with the stickers applied (I can't begin to tell you how plain they look without them).

ShinkenGreen (with his sword and disc!) arrived in the same shipment.

He has already made out with my sound warrior BoukenSilver, even though I haven't taken him out of the packet...

They are cool!

I also recently discovered that a store near me has high-quality bootleg Kamen Rider Hibiki toys for about $1.70 USD ($2 AUD) each, plus Go-Onger and Gekiranger bootlegs for around $2.50 USD ($3 AUD) per set of five, and I've bought those sets.

Anyway, my origami have made my day!

Find me on Facebook

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:13:28 GMT

I just secured my official Facebook user name, and my profile can be accessed directly via:

http://www.facebook.com/softpixels

Go "friend" me now.

(Friend is not a verb, dang it.)

Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:08:06 GMT

I just finished reading Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within by Jane Jensen, and... it is absolutely phenomenal.

American supernatural horror almost never affects me, but this had me so nervous at one point that I actually had to cover part of a page with one hand because I was scared of what it might say.

It has its flaws - mostly awkward phrasing, towards the end - but is awesome regardless. Amazing!

Finally, SirenBuilder!

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:04:29 GMT

Yesterday, Power Rangers Operation Overdrive Transmax Vehicles Set F arrived, meaning I now have a complete set. Yay!

Look at the detail on him! I'm a tad giddy. :)

Dreamwidth crossposting probs...

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:28:14 GMT

I have been posting over on my Dreamwidth, but it hasn't been crossposting as LiveJournal claims it is supplying the wrong password, even though I've entered it several times.

That said, even when I login to LJ directly I am always asked to enter my password twice, so...

Yeah. If you don't hear from me for a few days, check DW!

To Dream!

Sun, 24 May 2009 14:03:07 GMT

I have set all of my entries prior to this one as friends only, and will more than likely eventually update them to private.

I'm shifting over to jaeger.dreamwidth.org and will use an entirely new posting format.

I will keep cross-posting to LiveJournal, at least until my paid time here runs out, and will of course keep checking all friends' posts and comments.

I'm not going to import all of my posts here to Dreamwidth; instead, I will move posts manually when appropriate.