GMG: People who want everything to be easy

Here's a review I reamd from someone who doesn't like Battlefield 3.

Don't worry this post isn't all about video games, it's just a primer for discussion.

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I brought BF3 and COD:MW3 about the same time. I tried Call of Duty first and hated it for the most part but stuck with it and found a game I had some good fun with after a while. After maxing out a few weapons and earning a few rare titles I got bored of the game and decided to try BF3.

Over the past month I've owned it I put it in several times to try and get the hang of it but not liking it all so much (not for the same reasons I disliked COD at first). I didn't enjoy the pace of BF3.

To break it down multi-player is the highlight of this game. Offline I tried for a bit and found I liked it for the hour or so I played even though it was like riding on rails. Online the game doesn't have the experience you think it would.

Between COD and BF the biggest difference gameplay wise is the option of using vehicles. You have your choice of using just about any Jet/copter/tank/army machine you can imagine...even a freaking bulldozer.Which adds charm to the game but wait! All of the vehicles are hard as dry dog turds to drive. The vehicle controls are punishing. I crashed so many jets before figuring out how they work it was embarrassing.

If there is one question about the game people asks it's how do you pilot vehicles in this game. EA never thought to add in a bootcamp,flight school, training mode or anything at all that would make the game more enjoyable for people just starting out. So your left to be a pest to your teammates crashing equipment they need to win until it takes you X times to figure it out.

Since I brought the game mainly for that reason it was my biggest turn off from it. The FPS aspect isn't worth talking about. It's not exciting or heart pumping like COD is. You see a guy you kill him or he kills you. Guns are so so compared to COD and the accuracy of the guns is like playing baseball in the dark. You either hit or you miss when you swing but you won't know until you see someone fall or that ball fly. The weapons look more detailed and sound good though but don't expect intense fire fights as most people scope and snipe or in COD terms it's Camper heaven. Not really anyones fault but the games. The maps are so big that really scoping and sniping is the best method to take people down when your playing infantry.

Back to the vehicles though. They tried to make this game simulator and that's the problem. There's just too much crap going on and too much to remember/do. Each vehicle steers differently there are no simple controls. You'll be so busy trying not to crash or get your teamates killed you'll forget what you got in the vehicle for. Tanks are the easiest to drive but also the worse. They get stuck on everything and maneuver like well... a tank. They also don't last long as someone always has an RPG to take them out so get your rounds off quick or take down whatever you need (how realistic is that? an RPG takes down a tank?).

In a Military Action game I'd expect to be able to focus on the battle and not focusing on how to be a Pilot or tank driver which is why I'm not a fan of this game. If they want to make flight/driving simulators they should just make a separate game just for that not mash the two together. The game would be more fun with simple vehicle controls so everyone could have a good time without having logged 90000 hours into the game to master a jet or dunebuggy. I'm Using a PS3 controller to fly I don't think complex controls are necessary, I've never seen a real F/18 or Viper pilot use a PS3 controller to fly Why so Serious with the freaking vehicle controls.

I've given up learning to fly and know have become a suicide Kamikaze pilot. I find my target and crash into them. At least when I crash it will help out the team somewhat.

If BF4 comes out or any BF game I'll pass I'd rather stick with COD. I play games for fun not frustration.

Oh yeah and the game pace is so slow it is boring if you're used to faster action and heavy gun fights that make you think like in COD. I see BF3 as a game for people that fail at being COD to run to. Not many people like COD because of the skill and reflexes it requires to become skilled at but people love BF3 because it doesn't require much any of that. It's like the Anti call of duty. Hardest thing in this game is learning the GOD awful piloting controls. THIS GAME SUCKS SKIP IT!

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This fool made me laugh so much. Complaining that vehicles are hard to drive because they all handle differently(you mean I can't turn an SUV hard like a sports car, why not? what happens?!) Complaining that guns are hard to use because they have different recoil patterns and velocity drop? Complaining that real pilots don't have to use a PS3 controller (but instead a stick, throttle, and shitload of God knows how many buttons in the dashboard)?

Here's a summary of what grinds my gears.

1) What he thinks is important or vital to modern warfare is completely off. He complains that a game should stick to "focus on the battlefield" instead of vehicles (oh yeah... sorta like how the American military dominated Iraq, we sprinted our infantry across the desert without tank or plane support). This applies to ignorant and prideful fools in society that think they know what's best for everyone when they don't know jack. Being ignorant and prideful alone is one thing, but when you combine the two you get Super-Douche from the planet of Douche-ton. He can only be stopped by douche-tonite.

2) This guy doesn't care about team goals, only his own stats. He's wants a high kill death ratio, and doesn't care about his level of competition. I on the other hand, enjoy a good whooping of noobs, but also equally value a 1:1 ratio if I win a Rush game against supreme competition. You only get better by going against those better than you (in other words, losing isn't the worst thing). If you are content with being better than noobs, then you aren't getting any better. An example is an adult that thrives on dominating basketball games against kids and wants them to know he's better than them.

3) This guy wants everything to be easy. I enjoy the fact that I've crashed helicopters a couple times before I was able to fly them through tunnels. I'm still amused when I crash a plane into a near invisible radio tower. I laughed my ass off when my jeep got stuck between some debris and Tony and Jon were in the backseat and we got killed by a tank. Outside of BF3, there's other everyday slips. I appreciate the fact that I still miss basketball shots even when I'm on fire. You think I'm really good at stick shift? Sometimes I literally grind my gears because I'll stall my car every now and then.

These everyday small setbacks give you perspective that we are human who make mistakes, and you have to work to become good at something. Talent only takes you so far. So why do I laugh at my failures, while some annoying kid RAGES over his microphone? It's because I know that hard things are worthwhile because they are hard. More importantly I believe in my potential to become better. These small setbacks remind you to be humble, but it gives you hope. It lets you know how far you have come, and how hard you have to go. And knowing is half the battle.

This Makes Me Gears Grind (Direct copy of Bryan’s Grinds My Gear Segment)

So as some of you heard in mass today, my uncle’s mom died (Chu Khiet’s mom). She was my grandmother’s sister. Luckily Joe explained to me how we are related in terms that I can understand. My relationship with this person is equivalent to Aaron and Mai’s relationship with Bryan’s mom, which they also call Ba. Uh Ah!

So like tradition, before mass the person reads the mass intentions. There were a good amount of “Xin le cho linh hon Maria, moi qua doi.” It really makes me gears grind when they repeat “moi qua doi” three plus times in a roll. Each time I hear it, I just want to stand up with a shocked face like OMG! Moi qua doi?!?! I think announcing it once is plenty good enough, the moi qya doi part that is. Another thing that is annoying is when they xin le for someone that died in Vietnam. They always have to say “moi qua doi tai Vietnam.” My reaction would always be, oh thank goodness it’s not the linh hon Maria in America that I know… Our Vietnamese traditions can be very funny…

Anyways I wanted to share a little bit of what I know of Ba aka linh hon Maria. I didn’t have much of a relationship with her, but I will always remember her as the Ba that really loved my mom. Once in a while, she would take candy and fruit from her house, wrap it up in a napkin and brings it to church for my mom. Of course every time she brings it, my mom would say no please don’t bring it because I can’t eat it. Ba’s response would always be the same, “then give it to your boys!.” When I was younger, I loved her sneaker bars! I will also remember her as a extremely strong lady that survived breast cancer and a robbery which they tried to kill her, all of this in Vietnam where the hospital system is nowhere as good as ours. Now that’s a strong lady!

Now this last part, I hope will pull on the heart strings of those that read this. My other uncle whom doesn’t go to our church has been taking his mother’s hospitalization not very well. It has really messed up his head. For the past week prior to her passing, he would not be able to sleep and would always cry out at night for his mother, “Ma oy, ma oy.” The hours prior to her passing, he was at her bedside saying his goodbyes. He was saying that he was sorry that he had to join the army which resulted in him being away from his mom for a very long time. He really regretted his time away.

My lesson learned is to really cherish the moments we have with our parents, especially our mothers. No matter how irrational we may think they are, deep down we have it good because they love us so much! Don’t live life with a possible regret of the last thing you said your moms. Cherish every moment as they will not be around forever.

Grinds my Gears: Holding Hands in Church

You know how we hold hands with other people in church during the Our Father? Generally people keep their hands somewhere between bicep to shoulder level, and at the end, we raise them to eye level. Well some people hold their hands above the shoulder at the beginning, like ear level. This makes me tired, and when the part comes to raise your hands, we barely raise our hands because ear level is so dang close to eye level. I'm thinking mudabitch, you want to start above the shoulders, I will make you finish above the head!

GmG and CMcN - Kids and Technology

First off I just want to mention that writing for BiA feels like writing for a TV show, because it takes a week for my material to get aired lol.

Anyway, going to the many recent holiday parties has revealed something to me. Many kids are secluded in groups of three at most while playing Nintendo DS or iPod games. What happened to yelling and socializing and playing hide and seek? This is where I am very grateful for people like Vincent who have an unlimited supply of circle social games.

Being at yesterday's TN (December 18th) was fun seeing all the kids play board games. Heck even Khoa Vianney Andrew and I had a short game of Twister in the hallway. Board games are great icebreakers for kids and allow them to get to know others better than just playing games like tag. But at least even tag allows more socializing than playing Angry Birds etc.

Another thing that is ironic, with so much technology available, kids are actually losing some computer basics. I've already mentioned that its sad that none of the boys in HS/NS knows how to build a computer. When I was in 9th grade I knew how to set up networks and run command promps and build computers and overclock them. Do you guys remember how hard it was to connect a computer to a workgroup on Windows 98 or Windows ME? It was a Pain. Nothing was automatic, one wrong setting on the router or computer effed up everything. Kids were connecting to the router on Man Lan Day with their magicical Windows 7 telling me "I'm not connected, there's no internet". *facepalm*

GmG - rating things too extremely

Prepare to shake your fists because it's another edition of "What Really Grind my Gears"

Did you notice when youtube changed from a 1-10 rating system to a thumbs up/down system? There's a good reason why. Things that were good got scores of 7, 8, 9, or 10. So it averaged out to 8.5ish. Things that kinda sucked, while really deserving a 4 or 5, got scores of 1. So youtube had videos with ratings of 8-10 and 1-2. The 3-7 range was non-existent.

Here's another example. If you look at

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/release-date/new-releases/ps3/metascore

it shows you the combined average ratings of games from different review companies. But the interesting score that I always pay attention to is the user rating. This can be a bit unfair because people bring in expectations, but that's a good way for me to know if these games satisfied the fan base. If you looked at that page, I'm sure the thing that jumped out at you is MW3's fan score of 2.9. Why? Because tons of people were giving it 0 when it probably is at least a 5. But like I said, scores in the middle never exist in internet ratings.

GmG - flushing the toilet

I went to Home Depot last week and I guess being around so much lumber gave me the call of nature. Anyway I went into the first stall and I smelled bad but not that bad. I noticed that there was a waste basket beside the toilet and there was toilet paper with "striped markings" on it. I left that stall and went over to the next one. Same thing, a basket with soiled paper in it. I went over to the third stall and there was also a basket, but luckily no paper in it.

It was while I was thinking deeply while relieving myself that I realized why there was soiled toiletries in the baskets. While traveling to Vietnam AND Mexico, I learned that third world countries have weak toilets to conserve water. All public restrooms have waste baskets in the stalls and I learned from the locals that you're supposed to throw the paper in the basket so it doesn't clog the toilet.

Well this is America where our toilets are strong. And this wasn't at home, this was at the Home Depot where they have INDUSTRIAL toilets. Why do these immigrants still insist on the old ways? This is America, land of the free and home of the brave. Freely waste your water and brave the slight chances that your toilet will be clogged. You can do it immigrants, you now have the liberty to flush the paper down the toilet!

Grinds my Gears: Inaccurate Hollywood Portrayals of Firearms and Firearm Accessories

This one's been brewing in the back of my head for a while, but I never really cared to post because 1) Jon and Chris already know the things I'm about to say 2) Everyone else doesn't really care. Well too bad, it has gone on long enough! I saw something that was the final straw. I've been watching Top Shot on Netflix and I consider that a show that knows everything about firearms. But look at it's promotion poster!

Any of the contestants on the show could have told you what's wrong with it. The flying bullet still has it's case attached to it. Only the conical part (bullet) leaves the gun. The rectangular part houses the gunpowder and is ejected out the side of the gun. I've seen this is a couple movie posters with flying bullets and just laughed at it. But this is sad. I thought this show was the real deal. Why couldn't they get a photoshop guy who knew something that all the fans know?

Anyway, here's a couple more that I can list off the top of my head.

1. Never Needing to Reload and Not Aiming Down the Sights

Anyone who plays Call of Duty or Counter-Strike knows about how long you can hold down a trigger until the magazine is empty. It's about 3 seconds.

Check out Arnold in Commando. His first burst against the two guards alone is already one magazine, yet he doesn't have to re-load in the whole battle. Also he aims from the hip and is able to hit all his targets. God mode indeed.

2. Cocking back the hammer on a pistol that doesn't have a hammer.

One common thing in gun movies is when the bad guy points a gun at someone and uses his thumb to cock back the hammer. It makes a "click" sound. I suppose movies use that sound alot because it's the modern equivalent of hearing the executioner sharpen his axe. Most guns can shoot either from a hammer-decocked or hammer-cocked position. But cocking the hammer makes the trigger pull shorter, and thus making a more accurate shot. But it really doesn't matter from a distance of five feet, I guess movies do it for the "click" sound factor.

This guy makes a good point:

But the FAIL in movies and TV shows comes when they apply a click sound to a gun that has no external hammer, like that first revolver in the previous video. The most famous example is a Glock.

If you look at the back edge there is no hammer to cock back. The firing mechanism is internal. And yet when the guy points a Glock, there is a mysterious hammer cocking sound. Of course the biggest culprit in my head is the show 24. They've done this specific mistake at least five times, maybe more.

3. Gratuitous Shotgun pumping / Rifle cocking

You only need to load a gun by pulling on the slide or pump once. That loads one round from the magazine into the firing chamber, and it's ready to go. The sound effect editor or director likes that cocking sound so much that even on guns without hammers (rifles and shotguns) they will have the guy pumping the gun to make that sound. I'm a super 24 junkie and as much as I love the show, every gun battle has way too much gun cocking. In one scene, Jack Bauer has gone rogue and is inside a gas station. The cops surround him outside. Every time they have a cut scene to the cops outside (about 3 times), the cop with a shotgun pumps his shotgun. I face-palmed because unlike pistol hammer cocking, every time he does this a perfectly good round is ejected out of the gun, and he has one less round in the magazine.

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There's more examples, but I've made my point. Just know that this Grinds my Gears because I wish Hollywood would consult with technicians who know its better to give up cool "effects" for the sake of being legit. I know guns are powerful and dangerous, I don't need a stupid clicking sound to tell me.

On a positive note, I remember seeing this video from CNN. It's a firefight between rebels in Libya and the Gaddafi forces. The fun part starts at 20 seconds, when you realize you're not watching "Commando" but a real fight. And yet they hop into the line of fire and take a couple shots from the hip. They must be thinking "This is how the big American fights, I shall be like him, he always hits his target and never gets hit. Veery Naaiice." (no one gets hit, you can watch it)

If it at least turns our potential enemies into horrible infantry, then keep it up Hollywood. Keep making movies with Arnold and Chuck and Sylvester. For all we can guess, their hand-to-hand combat training involves only roundhouse kicks.

GmG: calling generic things by their brand names

Get ready to shake your fists because it's another edition of "You Know What Really Grinds my Gears?"

It annoys me when people call things by a brand name all the time. Stop calling tissues "Kleenex", bandages "Band-Aids" and diapers "Pampers". What makes it even worse is that sometimes they don't even have that correct brand when they call stuff by that name. Otherwise it would be "Hey can you hand me that Kirkland Signature tissue? Thanks"

Imagine a world in which people can liberally apply brand names to any generic item. "Wanna play Spaulding at the park? Let's jump on my Harley" "Dude that's a Baiden basketball and you have a mo-ped" "Whatever man let's take the Ford then" "You mean your '86 Corolla?" "Geez man you're being mean, fine whatever let's just jog there. I need to break in my new Nikes." "You mean you're Payless Shoes shoes?"

GmG: Public Restrooms

Get ready to shake your fists because it's another edition of "You Know What Really Grinds my Gears?"

Yes public restrooms stink, but I've gotten used to that. But now with these high tech laser motion sensor controlled restrooms, theres a new problem. When I'm on the toilet and lean forward to wipe my ass, the toilet sensor thinks that I'm done and so it starts to flush and it splashes feces and urea back at me while I'm still sitting.. And then when I wash my hands, the water that comes out from the motion sensor faucet is super hot. And I don't mean warm, I mean scalding coffee hot. It's like they DON'T want people to wash their hands. What's next? Scalding hot toiler water that splashes at me before I'm done wiping? *shakes fist*

-Mac

Grinds my Gears - Imperial unit system

Time to shake our fists, because here is another edition of "What Really Grinds my Gears"

You know what grinds my gears?

Electronics that use 3 batteries, like my small LED flashlight. Why not just use 4? It will be stronger, and there really is no saving one battery. I tend to lose that extra leftover battery anyway.

You know what also grinds my gears?

The American/British imperial unit system. Why can't we switch to the metric system? The metric system is based on the power of ten, while the imperial system is based on random things. The only one that makes sense is four quarts in one gallon. The rest is retarded! For example, I was making some pancakes awhile ago, and I had to get on the internet to find out how many cups were in a pint. If they gave me directions based on one unit, I could get the proportions right, like 1 part milk and 2 parts flour. But they said something like 2 cups of milk for a pint of flour. In that case, I had to look it up. But if they said I needed 500 mL of milk, it's so easy to make makeshift measures. All I have to do is fill up a 2 Liter Coke bottle one quarter way. Or if someone asks me my height in inches, I'd have to do some multiplication (5x12 plus 8= 68), whereas it's immediately obvious that 1.7 meters is 170 centimeters.

People complain about not being used to metric measurements, but I know firsthand that all you need is a week to get used to it. After a week driving around in Vietnam or Europe, it was getting easier to estimate how long a kilometer is. And to make it easier on you, 100 meters is pretty much 100 yards. In fact, if someone tells me that a certain distance is 60 feet away, I have no idea how far that is unless I convert it to 20 yards. In a way, this means that I intuitively already prefer meters over feet. How many feet are in a mile? 5,280 I think. Good luck getting a below average third grader to remember that. It's easier to remember 1,000 meters in a kilometer. And we already know how much a liter of water is. It's half of the Coke bottle. The kilogram won't be that hard to adjust either. At least it's based on water. One mL of water takes up one cc, which weighs one gram. That means that one liter of water weighs one kilogram. HAX! Still complaining about not knowing how much a kilogram is? Step on a scale, congrats now you know how much you weigh in KGs. Who knows what one pound was supposed to measure? Was it supposed to be the weight of King Henry VIII's jewel satchel? So arbitrary.

Some others complain that they won't know if they're getting a good deal. Is two dollars for a liter of gas a good deal? Competition still exists and collusion is still illegal, changing to the metric system doesn't mean changing to communism. Just look at Costco, then look at 76. You will know what is a good deal and what is expensive.

The one thing that I actually would like to keep though is the Fahrenheit temperature scale. It is arbitrary. Mr. Fahrenheit established 0 degrees by mixing ice water and some chemicals. And he established 100 degrees because it was the body temperature of a horse. Definitely arbitrary. The Celsius scale is based on the freezing and boiling temperature of water. However, Fahrenheit scale increases are more modest than a Celsius increase for more precise definition. Also, the meaningful temperatures on earth range from 0-100, a great coincidence. Of course in Siberia the temperature is below 0, and in deserts is above 100. But for the most part, all civilized places are between 0 and 100. If you're using Celsius, everything above 50C is useless to humans because nowhere on earth is that hot. And if we were using Celsius in New York, you would say it's negative 10C instead of 15F (common winter temperature). I think we should avoid negatives if we can. The beauty of that 0-100 Fahrenheit scale is that it fits the power of tens like the rest of the metric scale. It's why people like using 100 percent instead of fractions or decimals.

Granted, there is one hard part about the metric system. You have to learn the prefixes. But we already know many of them:

tera - 1,000,000,000,000 (a good byte unit to measure amount of pron DL in a year)

giga - 1,000,000,000

mega - 1,000,000

kilo - 1,000

1

centi - 100x of these to make the one unit (100 centimers in a meter)

milli - 1,000x

micro - 1,000,000x

nano - 1,000,000,000x

pico - 1,000,000,000,000x

Yes that means that Apple should have called the iPod mini the iPod micro. And if a new one comes out that is smaller than the nano, it will be called the iPod pico.

I may be a nerd and intellectual, but I believe the metric system is not Anti-American. If anything, it will simplify our lives and require us to memorize and calculate less. We can be more lazy, and it doesn't get any more American than that.

Grinds my Gears and Childhood MacNugget Mash Up

You know what grinds my gears? Annoying classmates and teachers from elementary school.

1) When the teacher takes roll call, you raise your hand and say "here". Then after ten or so kids some douche raises his hand when his name is called and proudly says "present". Gosh so annoying. Stupid overachieving kids. I might have done it a few times in my life (as a copycat) but I'm talking about the kids that did it every damn time. D-bags.

2) When you ask your teacher if you can go to the restroom, and she says "I don't know, CAN you?" Stupid bitch. I CAN, and I WILL take a dump in your classroom if you don't let me go. I remember the first time this happened the kid nearly cried until the teacher said "ask if you MAY go to the restroom".

I think students can get away with showing off, and teachers can get away with being a dictator in elementary school because no one knows better. But by high school, overachieving students get laughed at, and douchey teachers get ripped apart. However, by the time we get to college we again have overachieving students and douchey professors. I believe it is because students have put their grades above everything else, even common sense. Why else would we be nice to the cocky nerd, except to get some homework help. Or why else would we be brown nose mean professors except to get a recommendation letter? Come on college students! Get back your high school scorn and put-down attitude! Put the dbags back in their place!

GmG - Don't Compare

You know what grinds my gears? When parents compare you to your friends. It's okay for parents to want to you be better at something, but please use a blueprint in your head, don't pull it out of thin air just because you see another person you like.

My mom tells me have more manners like Khoa. I like Khoa, don't get me wrong. I DO wish I could be as well mannered as him and could speak better Vietnamese and approach adults better. He's a good guy. I just don't like that my mom tells me I should be more like that when she clearly has never told me what to do before until a model citizen comes along.

I said "yes mom I'll try to be better". But really I thought how I could counter the parent's comparisons. I could douche it up and tell my mom "hey why can't you be funny like Jon's mom?" or "hey why can't you cook better like Vincent's mom?".

Guys, let's not do this to our kids in the future.

GmG - Vietnamese Weddings

It's another edition of "What Really Grinds My Gears" starring Vietnamese Weddings!

Now before you accuse me of hating myself, I would like to say that overall I love Vietnamese culture and people. I only dislike small fragments, like the gossipy women. In the same regard, OVERALL I really like Vietnamese weddings. I love the traditions: I like the elaborate engagement ceremony with the huge roasted pig, the woman looks beautiful in an ao dai, the guy's blue ao dai adds to his persona (making him look either more badass or more intelligent), I like enjoying "non-soft" beverages while shouting "Dô!" (Yo), the people generously give money to the new couple, and most of all the seven course meal will destroy American food anyday errday.

But for the love of God can we please do something about the Vietnamese bands? Their performances themselves aren't annoying but it's their whole presentation throughout the night. Why is the music so damn loud?! At American weddings it's loud, but I can still hear the guy next to me without shouting. Also, American bands take a break and only play live music, so theres at least moments of silence. When Vietnamese bands take a break, they put on a CD so the music never gives my bloodied ears a rest. Another thing, they need to adjust their microphone input levels. When someone sings, you can't tell if they're good or not, because the mic is too low and their voice is overpowered. I would assume this is why Vietnamese people like to sing at weddings, because even if they are below average, they know the music will cover their amount of suck.

One more thing, Viet/English dual-language MCs are either hit or miss. Some are really good, like Bac Duoc or Lisa's dad. But some of them... ay yay yay... *facepalm* all I need to say is that if my guy sucks on my wedding reception I'm firing him on the spot and taking over.

"Chúc Mừng CHÚC MỪNG!" is what I'd say to my wife as MC.

GmG- driving

Introducing a new section to BiA:

“You know what Grinds my Gears?” Or as I will refer to it from now on “GG”

This first edition is based on annoying things that happen when you’re driving, and these are actions that are legal but yet still douche in nature.

You want to turn right, but you’re second in the lane, it’s a red light, and the guy in front of you wants to go straight. GG

The ironic paradox that also grinds my gears: you’re still in the second lane on the right, but there’s green light and you want to go straight. But the guy in front of you wants to turn right and there’s some pedestrians preventing him from going. GG

At an intersection at night, you want to turn left and your side has a green light. However you can’t go because there’s a red arrow, preventing you from turning even though there’s no one on the other side for half a mile. GG

The ironic paradox: you’re on a busy street in an old area whose streets are not updated to modern traffic needs (ex: Chinatown, South Pasadena). Its rush hour and people want to get out of the traffic. Then there’s a jackass that wants to turn left when there’s no dedicated left turn lane, preventing the whole lane from moving. GG

People that go 65 mph in carpool lane. GG

Another left turn situation: you’re on a large street that has a dedicated left turn arrow. The left turn is isolated by an island that budges out, but this particular island only fits around five cars. However the green arrow light lasts long enough to let like eight cars go through. When you’re stuck before the island budge, by the time the straight green light comes for you to move into the left turn lane, the left arrow turns red. GG

New Segments Coming Soon

I've had random ideas for new segments and I'm putting it down here so I won't forget

You Know What Grinds My Gears? (my ranting about different subjects like things on driving, firearm inaccuracies in movies, annoying things kids do)

Mac's Infatuations (stuff that tickles my fancy and people that leave an imprint on how I view life: teachers, soldiers, theory of evolution, theory of relativity)

Childhood MacNuggets (random nuggets of stuff that make me nostalgic. Also, don't you remember how much better macnuggets tasted back when we were kids? Now McDs Nuggets have all white meat ... pshhh... give me my tasty dark mystery meat!)

I will leave you with one Childhood MacNugget:

This movie was so amazing for the time with ridiculous CGI for 1993. The effects of this movie are advanced that I can show some children this movie and they will think it was made this year. This movie will never feel outdated (along with Terminator 2-1993 and The Rock-1996). I've seen Jurassic Park a couple times, but haven't seen Jurassic Park in at least five to ten years. However I remember the first time seeing it at the movie theaters and the part where this song plays with the bronchiosaurus is seared into my brain.

@ 0:48 the professor and the old man and the lady step out of their car and see a bunch of little dinosaurs moving around

@ 1:27 they see a giant bronchiosaurus in front of them

@ 1:46 the bronchiosaurus roars and gets on its hind legs and eats off the top of a tree

@ 1:51, the climax of the song, the bronchiosaurus lands back on its front legs and shakes the entire ground with a loud boom

You know today's kids and teens have this whole vampire thing going on. For me, it was dinosaurs. I remember seeing dinosaur stuff everywhere in book stores. I'm pretty sure they dont have even ten percent of dinosaur books for kids now as they do back then. I dont know what was going on in the early 90s cause I was a kid, but my guess is that there was probably some huge discoveries of fossils in the Montana area in the 90s, I remember hearing about a teacher saying something like that. Those discoveries probably started the craze. Sorta like how that tiny submarine that explored the Titanic's ruins inspired the movie and I remember an explosion of Titanic books for kids at bookstores.

I leave you with one awesome clip that made me laugh