Who Said a Computer Couldn’t Sing Anyway?

Yep, time for some weird humour, and to prove that I am such a geek. I found this page full of mp3’s made by making speech synthesizers sing. Speech synthesizers are the things that make computers talk for us blind people. But someone who had way too much time on his hands figured out years ago that if you feed a certain synthesizer code in a certain way, you can make it sing. And then, someone else with even more time on his hands took it to the next level. Seriously, check these out. Some of them are so well done it’s scary.

Is this a Joke?

I saw the movie about Arnold running for governor in California, ya know, “See Arnold Run.” Well, I sorta had it on while I was doing other things. And I have to hope against hope that the producers were actually trying to make fun of him. The whole thing was just a little ridiculous.

First of all, the title, “See Arnold Run” sounds like one of those old Dick and Jane readers. See Dick run. See Jane follow. Whatever. And that alone makes me think they want us to think of Arnold as some kind of Tarzan-like beast. Then, they have some other guy playing Arnold. Ok, I understand they have to do that because you can’t have Arnold playing himself. But he’s so famous that you have to do a damn good job of finding an actor for him, and I’m sorry, this guy sucked. Maybe he looked like him. Maybe he was all muscle-bound and had the right height and stuff. But his accent was so fake that it was obvious beyond obvious that he wasn’t even close to Arnold. At least get someone who can do a good accent fake. Seriously, it would turn on and off at will. Come on guy, keep it on for the whole movie. At least try to convince me that you are who you’re pretending to be.

And then there were all the I’ll be baacks and Caalee-forneeas. I think you know what I’m getting at. It was more like a caricature of Arnold than a serious movie about his run.

And then the final straw. They had this interview scene where supposedly Barbara Walters was interviewing him. Maybe the chick who was playing Barbara Walters looked like her, but the only thing that sounded like her was an overaccentuated speech impediment. Ya know, Bobwa Wawtas.

Keep in mind that I noticed all of this while sorta just having it on in the background. I can’t imagine what crap I’d see if I actually had it on and was giving it my full attention.

I don’t give a crap about whether it hurt Arnold’s feelings or not. I’m not some kind of Arnold fan. I just look at the movie and don’t find it convincing. All I can say is, if it was intended to be funny, which it didn’t look like it was, ya fooled me into laughing. If it wasn’t, go back to school before you right your next movie.

Arthritis Pain? What Arthritis Pain?

I was watching some TV the other day, and one of those commercials came on for a prescription drug that comes on if you’re watching an American channel. Ya know the ones. Some music and a voice saying, “insert medical condition getting you down? Are you not able to do the things you could do before? Then you should try insert drug name here.” Then after some supposed sufferers rave about how much the drug helped them, they heave a series of side-effects at you so fast and quietly, as if they hope to sneak them past you. Well I heard one of those commercials the other day. It was for an injection to help with arthritis pain. But the side-effects were so bad that I thought to myself, who in their right mind would even try this drug. I mean, usually they’re something like headache, fatigue, dry mouth, etc. But these were killers, literally! They talked about it causing infection at the injection sites, heart failure, suppression of ability to fight infections, and even lymphoma! And then some cheery woman encourages people to try the medication. Not on your life, chief. If I had arthritis, suddenly the pain wouldn’t seem too bad next to those side-effects.

That’s Not A Sport

So I didn’t have a very good weekend. I had some plans fall through on Friday night, weather was shit on Saturday and to top it all off, the Eagles couldn’t get it done in the big game last night.

Anyway there’s something that’s been bothering me of late, and it’s small and petty, but bothersome nonetheless. I’m getting really tired of turning on TSN, ESPN or Sportsnet and seeing Poker.

Now I understand that it’s become a huge television trend and everyone’s getting in to watching it and you have to support what the public wants to see. but how can you justify having it on a sports network? Last I checked it wasn’t a sport. If you really feel the need to put it on tv, and clearly someone does, then you need to find a different network to put it on. It’s not a sport.

There’s other things on these networks that have been on for longer that I didn’t agree with. Things like Darts and billiards have been littering the sports tv landscape for a long time but you can at least make a better arguement for them. For both of those games you need a physical skill. In my opinion, sport is a combination of physical skill, physical exertion, and mental focus. Billiards and Darts require a physical skill and a mental focus but I don’t see them over-exerting themselves physically and taking huge risk of injury. (Although you could argue that anyone playing a game where sharp metal objects are being thrown is at risk of an injury, but I think you all know what I mean)

Last time I saw poker being played, there was no physical skills required and no exhausting physical exertion. Does it take a great mental skill and knowledge of the game? Sure it does. But that doesn’t make it a sport and if your network is going to be called The Sports Network or SportsNet than you need to get that shit off your line-up.

Just because there’s no hockey, football, basketball or baseball on does not mean you need to resort to card games for your programming. How about some amature sports getting some much much needed exposure? What about more downhill skiing? What about more X-Games stuff. It’s growing just as quickly as poker. How about more golf? I hate golf but at least it’s another fast growing sport.

Just keep to what your’e supposed to be doing as a sportsnetwork…. or at least show some Go Fish.

Do Us All a Favour and Get Your Head Out of Your ass

Ok rage time. Woo! I was walking down the street on the weekend, minding my own business. AT one point I asked someone for a bit of direction. He was very nice and was giving me that direction. Then, this other man, no, I refuse to give him that much credit, this other asshole, strolls past and looks at the one helping me and says to him, nice and loud, “No matter how bad you’ve got it, there’s always someone worse off than you, eh?”

At first I thought I was losing my mind or misheard him, but the guy helping me seemed to bristle under his skin as well. Ok, asshole, and all assholes like you, here’s a message for you, so listen up. first of all, who says I’m worse off than you? So my eyes don’t work. I’m happy, I have food in my house, a roof over my head, a life, good friends, and plans for the future. Don’t cry for me, I don’t need your god damn pity. I need you to treat me like anyone else you meet on the street. And next I need you to take that blindfold of ignorance off your face and have it run over by the nearest transport truck, because right now, you look a hell of a lot worse off than me. At least I can see people for what they really are and don’t have to barricade myself in with the shallow ones like you. It’s people like you who make it possible for us to be worse off than you because you don’t give us a chance to show what we can do. But I refuse to pity you. I hope you figure out your a dick and start working to fix it real soon. It would make the world a better place.

Guest Posts are Here Again

Well, I got an email from our new-found commenter Jen saying she had something to say here. Since I always like it when there’s a new opinion to add to the mix, I figured I’d put it up here. So, without further adieu, here’s what she had to say.

Arg I Hate Autimated Computers
Well as I sit here reading Carin’s trouble with bell story something occurred to me.
Why is it that most companies have autimated computers that handle their calls. Emily is one from bell and she’s mighty frustrating.
When I call Bell I would like to talk to a real person not just some computer who mixes up everything you ask her about and mistakes the words “I want my account balance” to you want a new product alright.
She’s not the only one that buggs me. Then there are the kind of computers that want you to make a selection to handle your call by pressing 1 2 3 or 4. You can’t just talk to someone anymore.
What has happened to our society? I don’t know but it’s mighty frustrating.
In closing when I want to ask a question of a Bell representative or OSAP I just want to talk to someone not listen to 15 computer generated prompts before someone actually comes on the phone.

Can You Hear Me Now?

A german scam artist [I refuse to use the word inventor] has released
a mobile phone for the dead.
No, I’m serious, stop laughing. Ok don’t, but I’m still serious.

The phone, which goes by the name Telefon-Engel [which translated into English means Phone Angel], comes in a black box with a loudspeaker that is placed on top of the grave. It runs on a battery that lasts for at least twelve months, and the inventor claims that the sound quality is excellent. I’m not sure who exactly this is going to benefit, unless there have been some recent innovations in the field of decomposition audio that I’m not aware of.

If all of this isn’t enough, wait until you hear how much it’s going to cost you, ok, hopefully not you to get your hands on one of your very own.

It will set you back €1495, which is a cool $2407.47 Canadian but thankfully, well sort of, you can return the unit within 18 months if for some reason you aren’t happy with it and get a €50 [$80.52 Canadian] refund. Isn’t that nice?