Remember When I Used To Make Fonts?

So I've been seeing this new kind of weak arts & crafts art popping up at farmers markets and art fares. People are cutting up old license plates and nailing them down to wood, sometimes skateboards, to make sayings or spell out people's names.  My first thought was, that should be a font... and I checked, and as far as I can tell it's not......................until now!

Behold, LicensePlate font!

submitting to dafont soon. I'll keep you posted. 

Five Guys Burgers and Fries Sucks

Yea I said it.

I'm finally trying this Five Guys burgers place. Even though I'm getting burnt out on In-N-Out, I have my west coast loyalties to uphold. I honestly don't know what all the hype is about, but it's clear where the financial success comes from.

The burger was good. But good in the same way a burger at a family bbq pick-nick is good. I feel like I've had this burger 1000 times already. Everything seemed like you could go to Safeway and buy it and make it yourself for like 8 dollars cheaper. Right down to the normal Reynolds wrap foil wrapper. If this burger came off a hipster food-truck and had something distinguishing or  special I still wouldn't expect to pay $7+ for it.

So the hype, here on the West Coast at least is that it's not In N Out, although it looks like one with the familiar red and white 50s decor. But the food isn't special... At all.

I think the main reason they're making a considerable amount of profits is because of the generic  ingredients and unbranded foil wrappers, plain brown bags and Costco napkins  that they charge an arm and a leg for. Can you say instant profit? It's actually a genius business model. Make people think that because it tastes "just like mom used to make" that it's chic and worth $10 for a burger. I wonder if you give em $1.00 extra they'll write your name on the bag?

I'll take In-N-Out over Dad's birthday party cookout hamburger any day. Because it's something that you just can't duplicate.  In-N-Out is simple but it's got something special.

No Sushi For You!

Just discovered a newish, not horrible Japanese/sushi restaurant near my house. The only time we ate at the actual restaurant we saw the guy go out to his car and brought back a bullhorn. I was like is he going to a protest or something? So we're eating and we hear bullhorn noises. 'Bwoooop" "boonnngk" then like 30 seconds later we hear what sounds like a cross between a car alarm and a smoke alarm. Beep beep beel beep. Then the dude comes out yelling "fire alarm. Fire alarm!" in a heavy Japanese accent. We were like what the hell? He's holding a large serving tray with a large sushi roll in foil with flames. Real fire! We all quickly searched the menu on the wall for what this flaming concoction could be. Almost in unison we both exclaimed "Flaming Dragon Roll!" lol this place is awesome.

Fast forward to last night when we had our new mattress delivered. With the knowledge that there's a new sushi place in town, while we waited we planned to have take out from the previously mentioned restaurant. It was set, our stomachs were planning to get savory deliciousness. We had our take-out menu ready to go with our selections. It was 8:15, the menu says they close at 9, so,with my order script memorized, I gave them a ring. Ring.... Ring.... Ring.... Ring......so I thought "well maybe they're busy" so I drove there. Nothing was going to ruin the dinner our mental taste buds had prepared for!

As I circle around to the front all I see is darkness behind the sign reading "hours of business: mon-sat 10:00am-9:00pm"

WTF? It's 8:30...i want some fucking Japanese food!

Now what? How can you just not be open when you say you're going to be open?

We cooked pasta with sauce from a jar. :-\

still don't totally hate this place. We'll give it another chance.

Was TouchWiz really worth it?

So I was looking into the actual patents that Apple was accusing Samsung of, and was curious as to why they were picking on Samsung specifically when most smartphones are a rectangle with round edges and a rectangular shape with a flat glass screen on one side and most smartphones that aren't iphones run Android as the base operating system. But Samsung, like HTC and Motorolla put their own redesigned look on top of Android. HTC calls theirs Sense, and Samsung has Touchwiz. Here's where the patent D '305 comes in. It focuses on a grid of rounded square icons against a black background. Which is clearly iphone. There's a reason the Galaxy Nexus isnt included in the list of violating devices, because it doesnt run Touchwiz. It keeps with the stock or "Vanilla" version of Google's Android operating system. Google even warned Samsung that Touchwiz takes too much from iphone but I've read Samsung knew it and wanted to be like iphone.  So way to shoot yourself in the foot Samsung.  The other patents deal with features that really, every smartphone has. Pinch-to-zoom, double tap to center, and the ever so petty, bounce at the end of a page. So get ready for the shit storm because basic stuff that has become standard, apparently apple invented. Samsung could have probably avoided all of this with licencing of most of this stuff, but the Touchwiz thing really pissed off Apple. They knew it would and got their ass handed to them.  Touchwiz, sucks anyway in my opinion so I ask again... was Touchwiz really worth it Sammy?


This is also a funny image I found. I dont know how the jury let this slip. 

Reputation.com?

I've been hearing radio commercials for a service called reputation.com.
They say they restore your online reputation by removing negative reviews about you or your business. They don't say negative i think they say fake or damaging but how can they tell what is a lie vs someone who was telling the truth about your shitty business? Seems like an easy way to buy your way out of having the dirty truth told about you. This pretty much renders sites like yelp useless. IMO, writing bad reviews when you have bad service is your constitutional right to protest.

Many businesses on yelp etc focus too much on finding some quick fix for bad online reviews, rather than just reading them,taking them as constructive criticism and doing something to change whatever negative it is that people are saying about you.

Reputation.com just feels shady to me. It's all I can think about when I hear that commercial.

I'm sure fraudulent or vindictive reviews are out there but intelligent yelp readers should be able to sort them out if you truly do have a good business.

A LOST love.

So I was watching that show Hollywood Treasure where they find old movie and TV props and costumes to auction off. In a recent episode some LOST items came up. The knife Locke kills Jack with and a piece of flight 815 were auctioned off for a surprising  amount of money. All I could think about was "there's people still that care about that show?" I didn't think anyone would buy that crap this long after it ended. But they did. Because it was one of the best shows on tv for 4 years. But I'd forgotten that.

As most of you know I was o b s e s e d with that show for 6 years. But now looking back that show feels like an ex girlfriend to me. An ex that I was really in love with but then I caught cheating on me and we had a really bad break up. The finale and last season and a half were so horrible, honestly I think I blocked it from my memory. When they mentioned the knife that Locke stabbed Jack with I honestly didn't even remember, what should have been a very pivotal scene had even happened. The hurt and betrayal I'd felt after 6 years of such loyalty and devotion had blinded me of all the good times we had. All the theories. Trying to fit the mysteries of season 1 and 2 into a nicely wrapped pseudo-science package. Trying to figure out what all the little clues and easter eggs meant. Then mygroup  of die-hard started to worry that the writers didn't have a fucking clue about what was going to happen... But we stuck with them when all the pundits had given up. Then suddenly in the course of an hour every criticism by every naysayer we'd opposed was completely validated. That cheating fucking whore! It was a blow to us die hards. Not only did the show we'd defended and invested so much hope in turn out to be a fucking joke... The writers made complete fools out of us.

3 years later the wounds are still sore but healing. I still have seasons 1-4 on dvd. Maybe we can still be friends Lost. :'(

The Curse of 255 16th St.

It's Cursed

As some of you may or may not know, ever since I moved into my house there has been a dilapidated vacant house next door. I've written about kids from the near by high school sneaking into the back yard to do whoknowswhat.  And how I have to be the mean old dude on the block and constantly call the cops on them. (I get a secret pleasure out of it) and how for about a year it seemed like the happening spot to discard baby paraphernalia. Used strollers, cribs, car seats etc.  I think I narrowed it down to the crazy daughter of the guy across and two houses down. She is crazy. Another neighbor had a restraining order against her for screaming at his kids and dancing on his car in the middle of the night naked.  Apparently this all went down before we moved out here. But anyway, she had a miscarriage, which sucks, but for the first couple months we lived her we saw her pushing a baby in a stroller...we found out later that it was a doll. and that she was crazy. Back to the curse you all came her for. This fucking empty fucked up house.

The lady that lives on the other side of the cursed house likes to get all the 411 on everyone around here. She's like the E16th News Gazette. She told me everything you just read just a minute ago, she also knew the last tenants of 255. She told me just know...I know! after living here for 4 years she just now lays this knowledge on me... she said that the woman who lived there was a 77yr old who'd lived there most of her adult life. She died of cancer in the house. Her adult daughter moved in with her to take care of her before she died. This pissed of her deadbeat husband who ended up leaving her after the mother died. He was like "fuuuck you bitch stay there if you like it so much" (im paraphrasing) so in the wake of her mothers death and husband being a douche, she ended up offing herself with pills and booze a few months later. IN the house... curse!


The adult son now took over the property but didn't want to live there. He had a friend or someone he knew help him try to sell it. During this time the son died of what appeared to be a suicide but there was some suspicious circumstances surrounding it. curse! 

So then, a young adult grandson of either the daughter or son inherited the property. He decided he was going to fix it up and live in it (and sell and possibly make drugs which led to the garage burning down (hence the new section of fence I had to build to replace the burnt shit they left).  One of the first things he needed to fix was the plumbing. A good friend of his came to check it out. He looked over the pipes and agreed to help. He got on his motorcycle rode off to get supplies and had a freak accident and died from a broken neck at the end of the block. CURSE!!!!!!!!!   


No one has really been in the house since. It's been at least 5 years. A couple of cops came when the front door was open one time. I wonder if they are any of the cops that were killed in the line of duty a few years ago?  It's just too freaky to think about.

Every once in a while a guy hired by BofA will come and chop down weeds and board up windows. but this time the paper that is usually taped to the window says that its for sale.  I'd love to invite anyone to come and clean this shithole up so my property value increases .003 percent, but now I'm not sure if they will survive THE CURSE of 255 16th St.

Christian Rock? Fuck You

In response to a guy looking for a drummer. Other than the Christian band part it seemed like a cool band idea.

-I don't believe in christian music. It's not a genre. It's some bullshit lifestyle label that limits the diversity of the lyrics. I play drums loud and hard but I'm very anti religious. I'll never understand why any band would want to single themselves out like that. Faith should be between you and your "god" not on a bumper sticker.

Then he replied with some shit about it being a post looking for like minded musicians. 

"Like minded"? if you could keep religion out of it. My old band played a festival that until that year had previously been a Christian music festival. We had a ton of people digging us until they asked if we were a Christian band. When we said no they were like 'meh'...

I learned the word secular that day.  It shouldn't be a thing.  Just be a fucking band. All the bands I've ever been in were nondenomiational normal bands. But we never felt like we needed to put it in our description of the style of music.

If you dont like people spouting on about their beliefs or lack thereof, then stfu about your religious bs description of the type of band you are . It's really annoying. Labels like that are completely unnecessary in this context. Be Christian be whatever. Just keep it out of band descriptions. Too bad if you would have just said "heavy band" you could have had a kick ass, drug/alcohol free, experienced drummer who has no criminal record and is in a long term committed relationship. But you had to go and label yourself and segregate potential prospects.

To this day I will never understand how something could completely take over every aspect of someone's life. 

Lol "Christian Rock" what an oxymoron. 

God Bless America

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I totally pwnd a stupid Nickelback fan on the internet. Now I feel awesome.

So a dude posted this picture on G+. Hilarious right? A few of us chuckled and joked, because Nickelback in fact sucks. My first comment was "The sad part is that guy was there to see the opening band.... Creed" But a couple people disagreed and tried to defend Nickelback and started spouting nonsense about the constitution giving them the right to say what they wanted about their opinions.  "because it says in the constitution that you cant do things that effect the freedom of others" WTF?

Then he said..."if you dont like it dont listen to it" My response was "Knowing they exist and that there are enough people with horrible standards for music that this band got popular is what makes me feel the way I feel. Turning them off doesn't change this."


There was a bunch of back and forth with this guy and a few others supporting the fact that Nickelback sucks. I bit my tongue and stayed out of it because I knew I would just go off. But then they pulled me back in. 
"Nickelback is mindless noise fed to you by the music industry. It's very simple in arrangement which makes it easy for the masses to listen to. They have a cheesy cliché rock image which the simpletons eat up. There is nothing of value. This isn't an opinion. It's fact. The fact that you like it just makes you someone who is easily amused. There is nothing wrong with this per se but it is a microcosm of the ultimate dumbing down of society. Which is probably why you don't understand that the constitution doesn't say you can't do things. It says that the government can't tell you that you can't do things. The Constitution does not give you rights. The founders considered your rights to be "God-given" or "natural rights" — you are born with all your rights. The constitution does, however, protect your rights by: Limiting the powers of government by granting to it only those specific powers that are listed in the Constitution; (This has not proven to be effective oflate.) Enumerating certain, specific rights which you retain. These are listed inthe Bill of Rights - Anyway this is why Nickelback sucks."



That wasnt clear enough apparently. 
He countered with: "It's still your opinion. Only something that can be scientifically proven can become fact. Since the subject is about belief, it is merely opinion no matter how many words you throw at it. I think they are a really good band that have really good, meaningful lyrics. That is why i like them. So i guess that's it. We have discussed our opinions so there is no reason to argue :) "



Then I got all deep. 
"No I pretty much proved they suck. You can add most of the top 40 in there too. It's more product than music. But rock acts like Nickelback are all interchangeable. They aren't groundbreaking in any way. You may like the sounds they make and the words they sing but it's because you're supposed to. Just like you're supposed to like the taste of cola cola. It's sweet and bubbly but it's still horrible for you.  It's this knowledge that allows you to make the decision to continue to be a victim of the machine or stand up and realise what the fuck is really going on. So with that being said you should be able to say that despite the knowledge that Nickelback, britney Spears, creed, Kanye, Taylor Swift etc are totally the suck... You still like the mindless sound products they produce. Just like while I know coke rots my teeth, I still drink it because I enjoy the bubbles and sweet cola flavor." 
That pretty much shut him down.

After that it turned into a conversation listing music that didnt suck. It reminded me of the list of my Ten Albums I'm Still Not Sick of. (in no particular order) post from a few months ago. That inspired me to create a playlist to go with that list on my new favorite music app/site 8tracks. Check out the playlist below and check out my 8tracks page for more mixes I've created.

Songs From Albums (I hope) I'll Never Get Sick of. from kirksucks on 8tracks.

Great Fast Food Movie Moments

Here's some of the best [that I could find on youtube] Fast Food movie moments. Why? who the fuck knows I was bored. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!

Coming To America


 Waynes World 2



 Super Troopers


 Dude Wheres My Car


Demolition Man


Pulp Fiction 1: Royale With Cheese


Pulp Fiction 2: Big Kahuna Burger


Pulp Fiction 3: 5 Dollar Shake


Harold & Kumar


American Beauty


Half Baked


Fast Times At Ridgemont High


Critters 2


Big Daddy


UHF


and my personal favorite....
Falling Down


If you can suggest more [and they are on youtube and allow embedding] let me know.