Microspam!

Oh look, Microsoft decided to spam me (again)!
Zune System Maintenance Beginning June 16, 2009 - tsanders@hiddenjester.com - HiddenJester Mail.jpg
Know what you don't see there? You don't see an unsubscribe link! (See this post if you want to see me complaining about the same goddamn thing last September or here's where I explain why I ever even touched the Zune software in the first place.) So yeah, I reported it as spam to Google. Fucking Microsoft sends emails I don't want about a service I don't use and I can't unsubscribe? That's spam. By any definition. And you know what? Ever time I see the damn spam I'll blog it. I'm doing my little part to make sure Google hears that if you ever download Zune you get emails about it for life, even if you were tricked into downloading the software under false pretenses. Microsoft can add all of the "HD" you want to their media player, but as long as they are spamming about Zune I wouldn't even think about dealing with the damn thing. I get email from Apple about iTunes as well, but at least that has an unsubscribe option, like a modern, responsible company.
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Busy Week

I've launched onto a busy week. I'm at Apple's WorldWide Developer's Conference (WWDC) right now and I'll be at it all week. Then Friday as soon as Karin finishes her last day of school we're off to the airport to rush to MaxFunCon for the weekend. I have no idea what that means for posting. This is my first WWDC so I'm not sure how busy I'll be. Obviously I've got a laptop so if there's downtime I may post but no promises.
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Plants Vs. Zombies

I'm a little late to mention this but Plants Vs. Zombies is a seriously good gaming value at $20. The game is a lot of fun and has quite a variety of game modes. I'm not sure what all it's available on - I know there's a Mac version (Intel only), and I'm reasonably certain the is a PC version as well. There's also a free demo so if you have any interest in a solid little game on the computer of your choice you should definitely hit that link and check it out. Unless it the link doesn't work where you live of course, in which case suck it up! ;-)
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Death of the "Combo" Feed

Does anybody use the RSS "Combo" feed? It's supposed to provide the fulltext of the articles with the comments and then if somebody posts a new comment the article is marked as "new" again. It's never worked that well and it makes upgrading WordPress more janky than it should be. I'm seriously considering killing the combo feed so if you like it I'd advise speaking up soon.
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Oh yeah, BSG we hardly knew ye

Brother-in-law-to-the-blog commenter Whiskey asks what I thought of the BSG series finale. It's a fair question, BSG is probably one of the more discussed shows here on the Snarking Post. Well ... I still think Battlestar Galactica represents one of the best 1.5 seasons of television out there. Unfortunately they followed that with another 2.5 seasons of crap. The series finale did nothing to change that opinion and in fact reinforces it. I thought the finale was jumbled, unsatisfying, and they clearly punted on a lot of key issues. We've spent an entire "season" (spread across two full years) on what the hell is going on with Starbuck and the final answer is just "she's an angel. POOF! Wait! Look over here! Dancing robots!" They find Earth. Again. But this Earth isn't all frakked up! Wait what again? It's OUR Earth! They destroy all their technology! They are the ancestors of modern humanity! I guess they destroyed all their oral history as well! That way we can not learn anything! Just why do the Cylons keep insisting this has happened before and will happen again. Clearly it didn't, not in this way with a Cylon/human war and genocide and "angels" and whatnot. Was there any point to Baltar's religious conversion? Any point to the conflict between the human polytheism and the Cylon monotheism? WHY DOES NOTHING HAVE SQUARE CORNERS? In short, the finale made no fucking sense. Not only that it failed to close out many of the series' long-running questions. At the end of the day it turns out that BSG was a big shaggy dog story. Swell. Can I have the last "four seasons" of television watching back now? I don't have any plans to watch Caprica anytime soon, I'll tell you that much.
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