Winter break Pt 2 ft superhero movies

Avengers promo? They have promos all the time.
The listed regular price of $22.99 never happens.

So, I got a Sinemia membership, which is one of those subscriptions where you can see x movies for x dollars per year. You go to Fandango and check your theater for seats, sign into the Sinemia app and manually enter the movie showtime, upon which a credit card number is generated, which you go back and enter on Fandango to get your tickets. At this point, you are charged about $3 and Sinemia pays for the rest. When you show your confirmation email to get in at the theater, you also sign into the movie through the Sinemia app. It's a bit convoluted, but even with the not-really-hidden surcharges, you're shelling out ~$6 for a primetime showing. Not a bad deal with some patience and reading.

Anyway, my first experience got me into a showing of Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, which was a great way to round out Black 2018. Like (my previous review of) Dragon Quest XI, the movie was a living, breathing comic book. After coming off JRPG stories of insisting that darkness is bad and light is good without really explaining why, Spiderman deals with sympathetic villains and twisted 'good guys,' and my brain was almost stuck in the mire of Japanese character writing. This movie hits quick and good, and knows its place in its own world as well as the real world. It does a recap of Spiderman's existence, and kind of eye rolls its way through a 1-minute backstory. Isn't this like the 5th retelling of Spiderman in the last 15 years? 2 of the 5 lyrics in the 90s cartoon tell you all you need to know about Peter Parker: 'radioactive Spider-man.' Anyhow, I don't want to spoil the movie, but one thing I appreciated was that while 15 year old Miles Morales had awkward moments, that wasn't the entirety of his character. It's nice to acknowledge that teenagers are complex human beings, too.

Dolph Lundgren as an advisor? Sure.

The next night, I saw Awkwardman, which had all the teenage awkwardness and bland morality to be expected of a movie with a high budget. King. Kill king. Get power. Power good. Jokes. The score reminded me of Man of Steel in the sense that the one-song soundtrack was great...but it felt like one continuous song. It manifests itself when whoever is Black Manta decides to be Black Manta, which I thought would be his theme. (Dude! Sick!) And then, you hear the three-note theme when he's preparing to do something sinister. (G'hee! Awesome!) And then he disappears for an hour of the long-ass film to some inter-kingdom squabble, and you hear the theme again. At that point, it's just a rogue theme that plays whenever the hell it feels like it. Rupert Gregson-Williams, who previously kicked our asses with the Wonder Woman soundtrack, just wasn't utilized here. I know that the effects will look great in 4k, but at my showing, the actors' heads floated on bodies that weren't theirs, and there were loads of awkward effects like putting the trident up to his face. What the fuck? Point it at someone, it's a weapon! Lastly, the giant sea creature that gave that awkward-ass roar when Arthur...ehh...wins at the end and makes a generic-ass speech. I laughed a lot during Aquaman, and definitely enjoyed the experience. I'll be watching it again, but it was awkward as I've ever seen!

Liam Neeson approves!

In gaming news, I started Horizon Zero Dawn, and boy am I glad I waited. In spring in 2017, I had reached a divergence of this game, Far Cry Primal and Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I was pretty sure they'd be similar experiences, and ultimately chose to be disappointed by BotW and pleasantly surprised by FC Primal. Horizon Zero Dawn is pretty much Far Cry: Primal, though, and that's not a bad thing. The hunting and gathering are pretty minimalized and you spend more time fighting the dino-machines and conversing than preparing for your journey. Crafting is pretty quick and you can bypass it with money, but that requires more stopping to fight on the way to your mission destination. I paused through the main story and have been doing side quests and stuff and got back to the main story after a week or so of other stuff. Just when I was about to make fun of the story for having a really predictable twist, the scenes start to elaborate and this is where it's really shining. The world was destroyed by human greed and overambition, sure. The plan to save humanity is where the writing in HZD establishes itself and I'd encourage everyone to play it.

Other than that, I have been really thoughtless about frugal gaming. While HZD was only $10, I had an instant love affair with PS VR and splurged on a used bundle. Going forward, I'm going to challenge myself to go as long as I can without spending money on games this year. Foot, prepare to meet Mouth at a later date!

Still Cheap in March

K-Mart Jimmy Smits reacting to Loudmouth 45
(mercurynews.com)

For those of you in warmer climates, Seattle is still scooching along with 40F/4C degree days that are deceptively sunny. For those of you who recently invested, you might have gotten a recent shock when our illustrious president flapped his mouth about the economy and trade deals, and confused his Koreas. The news, as usual, blew the falling stock market out of proportion, and, while the cowards panicked and withdrew, the steadfast survived the...week that it took to recover. The more opportune took that window of vulnerability to buy some stock at a discount! Then everyone woke up and realized that when it comes to Wall Street quakes, people like us who don't need their investments until decades later should completely ignore the newsfolk who speculate on a hiccup in the market. I'm not calling it fake news, mind you. All of that shit is irrelevant until you need to draw on your investments.

Weakness!

My man here has the right idea
(ngopulse.org)

How have I stayed frugal lately? Same old story: keeping on top of subscriptions, knowing good alternative brands, cooking for myself, making my own coffee, and inviting friends over instead of going out. Same old story, right? Well, I've been putting in more time with friends and driving more as well as changing snacking habits to nuts, which are much more expensive than sugary stuff from the overstock grocery store. I also went hog-wild with the latest PSN sale, spending a whopping $60 on games to stock my Women's Games Months (Jan and March). All of this is overshadowed by $100 heating bills for the last 5 months, and that can shake the faith in frugality a bit.

The point? Just like cheat days on diets being necessary to go longer, you're going to have periods where you feel like you're hemorrhaging money. If you're already pretty good at saving, don't feel too bad; just try and limit it. I was raving all about triple-paycheck months, and these are definitely the best times to have a little fun. This might run a bit contradictory to a previous post, but the point here is that you should also have fun adding some of that "extra" cash to your investments, too. Just don't blow the whole check on silly shit.

Fill your belly in the house and heat that home!

2018 set your goals now!

I spent most of 2017 with unpredictable income, due to both unemployment and a sporadic work schedule. I closed the year with a full-time job and now I have a steady paycheck. For those of you who are fortunate enough like my recent self to have predictable income, you should set your sights on some financial goals for the year. I'd set my goals quarterly, rather than waiting until the gifty Christmas/Chaunnakuh/Kwanzaa season to try and tally everything for 2018. So, if you've never saved before, and make $15-20 hourly, start with $100 by the time your favorite flower blooms in April. Double it for the quarter after that, and build up to 10% of your annual income. The average person in my age group saved -1.8% in 2017, so you can be that much better off! I'm personally aiming for 30% this year, on the $2000 monthly (Seattle minimum wage), but I've been living frugally for 3 years. Two years ago, I saved $3000 of my total $17,000. That was 17%. You can do 10%.

If you are wondering how you can put aside that much money, click on the label 'frugality,' on the right side of this blog, and you'll see all my posts with suggestions how to live dat frugal life. Some of my favorites that I actually live by are: cooking for myself, driving minimally, eliminating unnecessary subscriptions and buying a year at a time instead of going monthly, knowing good 3rd-tier brands, making my own coffee, and regulating my hobby by completing more games than I buy. Also, if you get paid every 2 weeks, there are bonus treasure months with 3 paychecks. That does not mean shopping spree, unless it's splurging on a decent coffee maker to ween off your thrice daily $4 coffees, or some good tires to make driving safe.

The last huge financial decision is that I live outside of Seattle proper. This means I get to take advantage of the $15 minimum wage, which is about 30% higher than my local suburb. This means that I am a good 15 miles from work, and take the bus because parking is unreasonably high ($20 per day). The commute is roughly 8 hours per week, which is a lot of reading time. Another advantage of dat suburb lyfe is that there's a supermarket right across the street that I don't need to drive to. I'm also not paying downtown rent in my food prices, so things are cheaper in general.

The finest brrrrick wall! I've ever seen...

I usually put people to sleep talking about this stuff, and yet others will brick wall me and say that saving $8000 in a year is impossible, or that they can't make sacrifices. Okay, so save $1000 this year and you'll still be ahead! That statistic of millenials going 1.8% further into debt last year was for people making $52,000 ($26 hourly at full time)! Avocado toast indeed! If you're in this income bracket, I double-dog dare you to do the $8000 that I am shooting for. Even if you're raising a family, I think you can still follow some of my suggestions and come out ahead.

A little patience paid off immensely

What to do with your nest egg? I strongly urge you to do some research on investing. Investopedia allows you to create a fake stock account with $100k that simulates investments on the actual market. I did this for 3 months before determining which stocks I'd buy with real money. I've personally had great luck investing in Vanguard S&P 500 stock and I'm not the only one. My thoughts are that if American businesses are as ruthless as they are, they'll know what to do with my money. Worrying about market crashes is silly because if it happens, we're screwed anyway, but temporarily. Don't invest money you need now; that way you can be patient with the returns. 4% may not look like much, but once you make it to your first $10,000, that's a brand new yearly PS4 Pro you've earned yourself (though hopefully you'll just add that money to the pile.)

Grey Friday: Know your brands

Dudes. Chicks. Calm that consumer rush. This is a hard one, cause I try harder than the average Joe to be frugal and not financially wasteful, but I do get an extra blood rush during November's consumer push. It's no secret that Black Friday deals are businesses' chance to get rid of old inventory. While that's no problem in itself (that's a good frugal direction to be headed,) be careful of overloading on junk.

My best advice for thriving frugality is to know your good third party brands. Spend a few minutes on Amazon or CNET to learn some known flaws with big brands or product lines. For example, none of the LG tvs I've seen are not very good at handling black levels...shadows, facial hair and the letterbox lines all look "neon black," instead of having varying levels of depth. Samsung has a track record of terrible customer service. Stores used to use different types of cables to sell different tiers. HDMI (the current standard) for Samsung and Sony, and component cables (extremely limited in color depth and resolution) for Vizio and Spectre. I haven't seen this practice for at least 5 years, though. The stores may have realized that some people don't have the $200 extra to get the name brand; or maybe they realized it was a shitty underhanded practice. Ultimately, custom settings can make your cheapie TV look much better.

And please, please adjust your picture settings...a 2nd-tier TV is very capable of looking like the picture on the left.

Sometimes, foreign brands are as cheap as third party, but have amazingly high standards. For headphones, Beats are overpriced and bass-heavy, and you're better off getting the German-engineered Sennheisers and spending the extra cash on something else. Logitech, Swiss, makes great, affordable products that last forever. In the realms of computers, Acer and Asus, Taiwanese, sells laptops with better hardware than HPs that cost almost half as much.

I won't weigh in on fashion-related Black Friday sales because part of my frugality means I'm crisp, but not current *brushes off shoulder.* I also won't say what stores to avoid, though 'doorbuster' sales make me imagine the worst, and I'd personally just order online at my own pace. Our favorite retailers are doing sales all month long, so there's no need to skip out on your loved ones Thursday night after the Martinelli's is still washing down the third piece of pie you crammed down. We aren't drinking and driving, after all.

If you're only looking for a few things, the amount you save in not paying tax on Newegg.com, or the free shipping from many sellers might cancel out the lower-priced local deal if you factor in your personal time, gas, and hospital bills associated with stick fighting over the last SNES classic at store price. (Damnit, Nintendo, just make more; it's not that hard of a concept.) Year-round, consider DealNews, TechBargains and woot for daily deals; there's no reason to pay big box retailers' rent, line Shell Oil's pockets with money, and miss out on your cousins' cracked-voice rendition of Poker Face when you can have stuff sent to you.

Muh-muh-muh-mahhh

Last warning, stores will probably try and getcha with one of their store credit cards that gives you 5% cash back or 10% off every purchase. Often, you can find a better deal on the items themselves online with a little bit of searching, and just not spend the 5 or 10% in the first place. That means you're not paying interest on it, or forced to spend said rebate at that very same store! Besides, I have a hard time cancelling unused, unneeded lines of credit, and that doesn't help anyone! As always, keep your spend demons in check, and think about that debt you have to pay back at the end of the month for that chocolate robot frog that was 30% off. Have a good Black Friday, but more importantly, a great Thanksgiving.

Out with August!

It's been a while since I talked about good money habits, and school month looming is as good a time as ever to start preaching! A few months ago, I joined a gym, and it's been going really well. An ideal balance between frugality and practicality would be if you can work within walking or biking distance and get some good exercise every workday without thinking too much about it. The problem for me was that the work I've been doing since February changes location daily, and walking long distances got to be boring with the same starting point. That said, there are a few things to keep in mind when joining a gym.

Reading my kindle for an hour burned off that burger!

Math: My public gym charges $4.75 per visit, and most gyms (that arrogantly call themselves clubs) have an ugly, disgusting and painful $50-100 initiation fee. I hate this. This was the number one barrier for cheap ol' me. LA Fitness wanted that $100 startup, and $30 per month to use their gym. The monthly part is fine, but the rationale for the startup fee is completely unraveled when you take the option I took: 4 months for $129. While a yearly option would have been even more of a savings; I still pretty much dodged that silly initiation fee. Math tells me I have to go at least 27 times over 4 months to make it worth it. Luckily, I've used the gym 3-4 times per week and got my value about 2 months into the membership. I think I'm at the point of my life where the desire to stretch my dollar is enough to get me out of the house and into the gym, unlike previous attempts. Also, the gym is a 20-minute walk to and fro.

Guru of gainz: While I'm not an expert, I have some advice: slow the hell down! While there are dozens of techniques and workout plans, it's pretty universal that you need to wait between sets. Most of the advice points to a whole minute, but perception of time is funky. Setting a watch every time is a bit annoying, but a minute is longer than you think. A rule I use is the time between choruses of whatever song is playing. Most pop music is 3 minutes and has 3 choruses, and if you're listening to something more sophisticated *adjusts tie and brushes off shoulders,* the choruses are probably spaced even further apart, which is good for your resting.

Also, slow your rep roll. Quick, jerky motions don't help as much as long, confident, even strokes; I follow the advice to do one count up, two counts down on bench press, for example. Other than that, follow your plan to your heart's content!

This is all I need...substitute the gnarly sponge for a carafe and half and half, dho.

Lastly, since school is starting for some of us, let me remind you that your habits are about to change. Check those subscriptions before you start the next chunk of the year with a lot less free time and trim the fat! Game of Thrones is over, and that HBO.com subscription is $15 per month that could go into something else. Well, make sure you've watched The Wire, first. Also, pumpkin spice lattes are around the corner: you've done without them for most of the year, why start this $5 per drink habit again? Now is a great time to grab a bag of beans/grounds (I prefer LaVazza), dust off your coffee maker or espresso machine, and wake up 5 minutes earlier. You're saving yourself $50 per hour of labor after cost of good coffee and your favorite accouterments (<--spellcheck told me its spelled that way).

This 2017 administration is a giant mound of trash

2018 will be the first year will I will not hand over my income tax willingly. I think of the benefits I got from a public education, hospitals. More recently: the ease of voting and well-maintained roads. At the same time, between the local police being worthless and my 2 calls to our inept city hall to try and tackle my apartment's water issue, I have come to really resent paying both local and federal tax.

The events in Charlottesville over the August 12-13 weekend were a tear in American fabric. The President had an easy pitch to hit a home run and simply condemn the troublemakers and denounce the obvious evil at work. Instead, he screwed it up, as he screwed up his major platform promises of building a wall, restructuring healthcare, and making America great again.

Republicans and traditionalists like to look to the past for inspiration, usually while failing to handle the present and of course ignoring the future. Building a wall along the border of Mexico ignores the recent slowdown in immigration because their economy and quality of living are improving quickly. Repealing a past change that a nontraditional president (Obama) made, not giving a shit about the tens of millions who would lose their coverage. And obviously, Republican/nationalist/traditionalist slogans like "Make America Great Again," and "Take XYZ back," are calls that current conditions suck and going back in time will solve today's and tomorrow's problems.

You know what else was back in time? Blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious elitism. Obviously, the majority supporters of this won't come out and say they want this, and instead are building a backwards path that is super vague about the future. Under the elephant party's fetishism of the old days, they ignored the fact that a ton of corporations didn't really share their tax breaks with employees, and people were independently allowed to fall on their asses and spent generations trying to crawl out of the muck.

What I'm saying here is nothing new, but it obviously still works. The 2016 election was split pretty close down the middle, despite the vile collection of candidates that ultimately chose the "most successful" of them all to represent the party. But if that's the case, what the hell does success mean? #45 inherited wealth built on denying minority tenants, not paying people back, and lying out of his ass. He sure made a ton of money doing it, though.

And now a huge amount of tax-payers are hoping against hope that he gets nothing done, as his agendas are all crap. The alternative? If #45 gets impeached, we have to deal with a real Republican who will get worse things done. This. Really. Sucks.

While America holds its breath and keeps politicians busy countering the administration's terrible business and political ideas, we're completely blocked from progress. Every 6 months, these cockroaches try and slide in a business proposal that ultimately undermines internet - the sixth human sense - functionality. The Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is burning up resources for how people get into school, rather than focusing on making it worth going to school. The EPA is just a castrated, gutted, ineffective mess. The Department of State is being replaced by inexperienced yes-men, as the existing employees are cut off from advising Rex Tillerson. The list of crimes-against-Americans goes on and will keep coming. Just wait half a day and you'll find an article about who isn't doing their job, but still making more annually than what the average citizen makes in a decade.

#45 appointments have been highly successful at minimizing the government - the heads are all pretty much the antithesis of their departments. As a result, I don't want to pay taxes towards these government bodies that are just dismantling their ideals. These people do not deserve to be paid, and they are not working for the public's interests. Ultimately, I don't want to go to jail, so I will pay my goddamn taxes, but I will stretch that shit to the legal limit, so the money will have a chance to devalue and inflate. I'd love to pay with pennies, but that would have to be mailed, and postage would cost a grip.

August update

July's monthly goal of eating the contents of my freezer and pantry was a bust. The purpose of doing this was to prevent a buildup, keep items from spoiling or losing taste from being frozen, curb food shopping expenses for the month. I didn't quite make it through all of the 6 packs frozen vegetables, and there's a tube of chorizo that I should use pronto. Everything else, like ramen, the 4 cans of beans and tomatoes, and Trader Joe's meals still has a very long shelf life. My girlfriend moved in near the end of the month, and brought her stored food as well, derailing the mission.

I have been chosen to volunteer over Labor Day weekend for PAX! That was a relief, though the position I'll be working is apparently 12-hour shifts, and will probably deal with a lot of noise. This is in stark contrast to last year's position at the Handheld Lounge, where I sat in a chair the whole time, talking with fellow volunteers and chatting with people about Pokemon and Final Fantasy.

The day before PAX will be my last day working customer service at my current job. Lots of people would tell me how irresponsible that is - choosing a 4-day convention over stable employment, but I dare you to work customer service for 8 months after having way cushier jobs, and not make the same call. Quitting the company will give me a much-needed kick in the ass to find higher-paying work so I can get back to saving. Let me add, though, that because of my awesome saving, I have a cushion of "f- you money." I recently sold all of my Apple stock - after 1.5 years of mediocre performance - and will be spending that on necessities instead of reinvesting it. This will buy me time to find a job I want more than simply settling as quickly as possible. So, consider the freedom that a chunk of savings can earn you!

The day after PAX is when I say goodbye to my girlfriend for a very long time, as she has to return to Korea. Her student and work visas have run out after 5 years, and so has the money. The plan is for her to work in her home country, and blow her savings every couple months to visit, but the frugal part of me is shaking my head. I think the best option would be for me to take a limited teaching term in Japan through a program called Westgate, and visit from there. I'll talk more about that in another post, though.

I've seen a little bit of the Olympics, but since I don't have cable, it's been interesting figuring out how to unconventionally watch something that should be free. I think it's a basic citizen's right to watch countries the Olympics, but NBC doesn't agree with me. Also, Rio has done a splendid job of hosting the Olympics, despite all of the concern. We're only a week in, and I wish the greatest luck and appreciate Brazil for hosting.

Gaming update will come separately, of course.

Objective shuffle 2016 part 1

You know, I've been very reluctant to share my 2016 resolution, but we passed the year's halfway point, so no harm, no foul. Just after the new year, I let tradition stress me into thinking I needed a yearly goal to commit to. I spent the whole month of January with that guilt at the back of my mind of not even being able to come up with something. Losing X number of pounds or saving X amount of bucks are nobles goals, and I very much believe in challenging yourself, but I wanted something that would be a bit more interesting to write about.

Then I started getting ideas, so in February, I set out to read as much as possible. I finished a 300-page novel that month, but I didn't actually break my record for pages read until May - 450 of a 700-page novel. The difference came from of course being super engaged in the book, but mostly reading for an hour or so before starting video games, as opposed to games first. Basic prioritization.

I told myself that March would be the month for most trophies or platinum trophies earned. For those of you who don't read the other 90% of this blog, you get a trophy when you do certain things in video games, and these save to your online gamer profile. There are people who obsess over this and don't start playing a title if its trophy list looks too hard, and then there are others who just play a game for its story, regardless of trophies. I fall closer to obsession and always try to get all there is to get in a game. The biggest issue with trophies are that developers put in multiplayer trophies, and lots of games simply lose their online community within about 3 months of release. Considering I usually buy used games to save cash, there have been a few titles that I passed because so many trophies were rooted in online matches. I ended up completing only 2 games that month, which is quite underwhelming. I've actually completed more games in June!

During April, the month after my move, I set out to save as much money as I could. I discovered a local market for Indian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian (which I call "the brown people store") groceries that happens to sell vegetables and fruit by weight, which saves a shitload of cash. I did especially well at generating cash because I sold my Tesla, McDonalds and Coke stocks for about $1000 profit. I'll write some thoughts on stock in another post.

May was a weird one. I started the month thinking I'd try and release as many blog posts as possible...and released two. This challenge definitely didn't work out, but I had some other successes that I wasn't necessarily aiming for: I biked to work 20 days in the month, and replaced my bike brakes over a 2-week ordeal.

June is almost over, and I started the month by downloading an app called LoseIt. This is a calorie counting app that lets you set a target weight, and will give you daily amount to stay under. You enter your meals at any time, with a live search, and the crowdsourced list is thorough. I found several Korean brands of instant ramen and even made my own entry for Indonesian satay-flavored ramen, called Indomie. I'd initially committed to simply counting calories and set weight-loss to July or so. However, I've been able to stay about 1500 calories under the weight loss recommendation, so that means I should have lost around 5 lbs. Since I don't have a scale, this is all numbers.

Damn, bruh, slow up! Instant ramen ain't fast enough...

Another side effect about counting calories and not the more detailed nutrition is that I've eaten a lot of instant ramen. I bought a case of each ramen I mentioned for $20, and have so far been able to keep other grocery spending to about $80 this month, $20 of which was high quality coffee grounds. I took May and June's savings this month, and it went to $800 of dental work, so the investing went into my pearly whites!


My goal for July is to eat my pantry and freezer. This is easy because I've only lived in the new apartment for 4 months, and don't have much of a backlog. This should also minimize the grocery budget, as I'll just be shopping for chicken, veggies and fruit at the brown people store. I'll report back later!

Login screens need to move forward.

Whether it's 5 minutes to kill or the last 2 minutes until nuclear meltdown, we've all been stonewalled by logins. Everything requires an account now, and some these are completely useless. Pinterest is a prime example: you need an account just to browse pictures and other peoples' hobbies. Rullly? On the other hand, I'm glad my financial sites check the IP I logged in with and ask security questions. My main gripe is some of the unnecessary stress that passwords cause us.

My Outlook box at work demands I change my password every 3 months. I can understand executives wanting this feature, but when most of the company uses email in place of chat (to discuss team projects and customer orders,) the information just doesn't need that level of protection. As a matter of fact, between sick days and high turnover in the entry-level positions, a team having to wait for one person to get his or her password right could be a problem. For me, frequently changing passwords often causes the ohh shit, I need to check something before I need to go home, and forgot my password situation. This leads me to my password retrieval gripe.

Digging up or fixing your forgotten password is a nightmare. After your 3 failed attempts because you logged in standing up and your wrist was resting on CTRL, what's the next step? Call IT, which is already closed for the day.

Some sites will ask your security questions and personal info before either resetting the password, or triggering a reset password email. That is a good thing. Attention companies: automating password retrieval is the way to go! Having to call someone to get a password for your login is silly, unless you work somewhere with incredibly important data. However, even those places have the James Bond random number generator key chain thinggies that make the password reset call unnecessary.

This site gets it!

Also, I recently got burned for not knowing whether I had an account or not. I was applying for a new position within my company, and forgot my password. Now, I have 10 memorized passwords, which is probably more than the average Joe, but still less variety than I should. Anyway, I used the forgot password link, entered one of my 3 emails, and was rewarded with this.

Seriously, fuck off. If? I'd done this with 30 minutes before I had to head to work, and waited around like an asshole to know whether or not I'd already created an account under that particular email. I don't know if that's more or less infuriating than that 5-minute wait for the password reset email when you actually do have an account.

No one has screwed me over as much as Microsoft, though. My hotmail account was hacked 10 years ago, and there's no tech support number to call - in fact, someone took notice of this and posted a number as a Google result. I got halfway into the call when someone with an accent asked me for $69 and a credit card number. Bless that guy and fuck Microsoft for not having a normal retrieval process. They have a list of about 50 security questions to answer, with your personal information and even a open answer part with "some of the last subjects your emails were about." In theory, this is genius, but if someone hijacked your account and sent out 100 emails, then whatever you guess isn't going to work. And surprise! It didn't. Instead, some clever thief capitalized on Microsoft's inability to satisfy a common issue.

As much as I rail on Apple, I'm really glad that they've tied most of your logins to when you unlock your phone. Most of the frivolously protected sites/apps with logins being opened with a swipe works juuuuust fine.

I'm not saying get rid of logins altogether, and I'm not calling for sci-fi eye scanners on every device, but some companies need to realize just how much a pain in the ass their accounts are to access.

I smell a rat...err, some other rodent.

Two rats looking like miniature polar bears. D'awwwww...

When I was about 10 years old, I watched a friend's gerbil for a week or so while he went on vacation. I'll call the friend Harry, and the gerbil Latte. I don't know whether it matters, but I met Harry through another friend, and wasn't super close with him. Either way, young Mark thought Latte, the gerbil, would be as cuddly as his own pet rats, which had the benefit of knowing me and let me pick them up and cuddle in my hand and the usual stuff that people get pets for.

Latte was different. Several days into my care, I figured it was time to pick up this slightly-muscular ball of fur and reap the rewards of holding that fuzzy critter. Well, Latte wasn't having any of that and first bit me, then leapt to his death on a hardwood plank that was lying on my carpet. At least, that is what I told Harry and his mother when they came back from their vacation to the sad news. Young Mark, ashamed of what really happened, told them that lie and the others were good enough people that they didn't question the randomness of their suicidal gerbil.

The truth is that after Latte bit me, I angrily swung the rodent by it's tail, and it flew off and hit the carpet. I thought that when he bounced off the "soft" floor, he was still alive...until a moment later, the poor thing never got up.

We lie to cover up shame, protect others' feelings, and to get people to do things they might not do otherwise. Lying is pretty gat-damn useful, and an amazing social lubricant. The cost of it is variable, from the dignity-saving flattery to the friendship-sabotaging backstabbing.

More than 20 years later, I remember exactly what that scene with Latte, Harry, my mom and I looked like, and am still ashamed about the lying as much as the action. For that time between, I developed a REALLY tuned moral detector. I don't call it a moral compass, because I breaks da rules all de time. But I do like to call people on their bullshit, and ask that both sides respect the rules as often as they can. This makes me a pretty lousy guest to some interactions, but I really do put effort into giving some genuine thoughts to my friends, family, and conversation partners who stick around long enough.

One way I've tried to use my detector for good is trying to understand why a lie comes out instead of pointing it out, embarrassing all parties involved, and making others spiteful. I'm working through this practice of empathy, and it takes patience I never knew I had, but I think it's a lot more useful than simply taking the wind out of someone's sails in the name of integrity.

Stuff I enjoyed reading...cheap or free

A blog post about reading, yippee!

I've been a long-standing Amazon Prime subscriber, and really enjoy the free monthly Kindle book I get. I generally don't pay for brands, unless it's secondhand or damn cheap! Amazon works just fine for me, as I think the Kindle is a fantastic, low-cost well-built device. I regret not plunking down an extra $40 for the backlit Paperwhite, but I digress. I want to write a really short blip about some of the books I've read over the last few years. These books were free checkouts from the Prime Lender's Library.

Reader's disclaimer that I tend to remember the characters rather than the over-arching plots.

The Rho Agenda trilogy by Richard Phillips is about 3 high schoolers who find a crashed alien ship. They gain powers and become heroes. The books are awesome and very exciting to read, though I don't remember who or what exactly the antagonist is. Two of the characters are brother and sister, and I liked the coming to terms with how strong they were and learning when not to help. I'd recommend these books, though.

Looks...hot!

Whispers from Mirrowen trilogy by Jeff Wheeler. I read a lot of fantasy, and really appreciate when magic has a cost. In video games, this is mana; for vampires, blood; in Mirrowen, it's sanity. Some characters in this series can control fire, as they lose control of both their minds and the fire. Another big part of this are the dryads - tree spirits who enter the human realm through trees which they are bound to. The characters' dangerous journey to save a dryad and then the world are pretty cool, but I mostly liked how the characters dealt with their challenges. Also, the Legends of Muirwood trilogy by the same author, and a pretty good read.

Yeah...something like that, but more modern.

Witching Savannah by JD Horn is about modern witches in the South. The main character is the forgotten, no-magic-having shadow to her sister, who's been groomed to be the next great witch in the large family. The third book gets a bit weird with a plot twist, but the magic definitely evolves as you go through the books. My favorite character started off as an avatar created by a conglomerate of powerful witches. This human-like golem starts off as a way for its creators to participate in important meetings from afar, but this character ends up evolving into a more complex being with its own feelings.

I want to read The Chronos Files series by Rysa Walker again. It had time travel and an awesome sense of adventure, but I think I got lost in the plot because I took too long reading the books. I really liked the story here, but honestly can't recall what it was about. But time travel is awesome, so read these books!

I thought of Warhammer while reading Frontlines.

Marko Kloos' Frontlines trilogy was an easy read about a planetary soldier who fights aliens who are clearly winning against humanity. The world has been divided up to Western forces versus Sino-Russians. As the two sides of humanity are duking it out over Mars and other colonies, they are periodically attacked and decimated by giant aliens who are able to undo humanity's progress very quickly, with superior technology and firepower. I really liked the battles, the military talk, and the author's imagination on what will happen to earth in a couple hundred years.

My absolute favorite read in the last few years has been the Traveler's Gate series by Will Wight. These books have my favorite things about the fantasy/magic genre. Will Wight's universe is awesome: there are 8 territories with different magic, properties, and creatures. One of them is a snowy desert with vicious, hairy, hellions that look like moving piles of snow. Another territory is on a lightning-stormy wasteland with flying lizards and other scary things. The main character Simon ends up in a strange territory that's a very large house with trapped rooms, insanely powerful weapons, and creatures trying to kill him behind every door. Another character from this "House of Blades" talks to these magic dolls, which help him fight and provide both quips and counsel. This trilogy had funny, engaging characters, a creative setting, and an awesome sense of progression. I would have no problem paying for future books from this author.

These are Warcraft characters, but remind me of some characters in Traveler's Gate. 

Marketing Gimmicks I think are cheap...

"But wait!!" I live in a house that runs cable tv for most hours of the day. The Internet is so ubiquitous, we rarely use the term anymore...it's just an extension of life. Either way, with the ability to make one-click orders from your phone or pc, it baffles me why tv commercials still do this gimmick. I'm glad I watched the whole commercial to get the deal. If I had picked up the phone, I may have paid full price!

Out-of-genre shots in marketing. The slick action shots in this Paul Blart fat-guy-comedy trailer are just incongruous. I'm not saying we shouldn't have quality parts to a movie, but I think it's a cheap laugh.

I...just made you watch that. This lame contrivance is related to the "least expected" lazy humor. Remember that foul-mouthed bear Ted? What about the cute white girl Sarah Silverman who cusses like a sailor? These lousy acts are funny because bad words are coming from where you least expect them.

Next up: ultra-HD-uber-colorful-commercials-with-super-crisp-colors-and-graphics that take no loading time, during your choppy, constantly buffering streaming videos. I get it, we need sponsors, but (internet speed) throttling is wrong. (Source: youtube.com, especially on 3G)

Teaching ESL, you run into this everywhere.

Now, the next one is a humdinger for friends and other folk who want to call me a hypocrite. *Takes a breath.* Websites that hide everything behind an even-free login. I_don't_want_to create an account before I know what your site is about. I'm talking to you, Pintrest! I'm preemptively attacking myself because once I get a big website, I'll hide content behind a login. That's right, friends, get ready to throw this one in my face!

Music tropes. For a while, there were parodies of the flat, blasting trumpets from the Inception trailer, and now all action movie trailers use this. In comedies, you know the black characters are on screen because it sounds like 80s rap instrumentals with record scratching. Me, Myself and Irene, one of my favorite comedies, is a great example of this, though I can't find a clip to prove. Towards the end of the movie, his three black sons show up in a helicopter and save the day to this music. Other examples are the saxophone to tell your stupid ass the movie is supposed to be funny. And don't forget that it's a spooky comedy because there are pizzicato stringed instruments. Get outta here with that corny stuff! I'm not going to pick on every single genre and music type, but I have seen these a bit too often and wonder if it's time for an update. The trope with the strong trumpets and male choir for a swords and sandals flick never gets old, though. Always cool.

This article made it pretty far without a video game reference.

...pre-orders...

Pre-orders. The granddaddy of them all in my orb-clutching-gesture-causing marketing gimmicks. Fuck pre-orders. I see that it's a good gauge for how many games will sell, that's very important to the company. But how often do we get games that could have used another week of bug-testing because of "Day-1" releases? The company makes a decision that the million preorders means we want a buggier game now, more than a polished game next week. There is one exception to this, and that's companies that simply lower the price for preordering. Amazon Prime members can get select presales for $47.99, which is slick. Bonus gripe: why is digital content the same price as physical?

Season passes are another bullshit marketing ploy. That's where you plunk down another $20-60 on the game to ensure you get the often-tiny expansions to the game. You get an extra 10% of content for another 30% of what you paid initially. Some games are so great, you don't want them to end, and DLC is a blessing. However, the most frustrating part about these is that the season pass often go on sale for ~50% right after the first season release, meaning early adopters simply get financially punished for not waiting to purchase it. Thrifty Mark don't like that. Don't like that one bit. So, I never buy season passes until after their first release / price drop.

I hope to kick out some positive examples of great marketing troupes in the coming weeks! What are your favorites and least favorites?

Cheapass wins...flawless victory. Frugality!

Hey, y'all! I wanted to give an update on how I'm living cheaply. My 2 games in, 1 game out strategy has gone well. I paid $48.99+tx (NOT full retail price) for StarWars Battlefront, and have completed Titan Attack, and I am almost finished with Crimson Dragon, a free title via Xbox Live Gold.

Sistema is made in NZ, and durable as hell.

Since March, I've lived with a family I'm very close to, which is cheating, frankly. Lots of you who are looking to save money don't have this option, but as more 1-bedroom apartment rents soar north of $1000, you might start to make nice with old neighbors and relatives. The family gives me access to their car, but I still walk 20 minutes to the transit center, and bus in to work, like a good boy. Another cheating point is that the family cooks for me and hates leftovers, meaning I get to bring my lunch to work everyday. If you decide to go that route, forget traditional tupperware. Sistema microwave/freezeware is the real deal. I've used mine for a year and a half, and there's no peeling or melted plastic scarring. The seal comes out, and all the plastic parts are easily washable.

Just need to plastic wrap them suckers

Breakfast, however, is where I can contribute. Barring some unfortunate allergy, I would suggest peanut butter (or another kind of--don't laugh--nut butter) balls. Take a buncha oats, mix in a pinch of cinnamon, an even tinier bit of salt, some chocolate chips. I currently use about a tablespoon of maple syrup or honey for a sweetener for every 1 cup of unsweetened PB. Boom! Then I wrap a heaping tablespoon with plastic wrap in my palm and make into a ball. These balls are the calories you need, and beat pastries (my weakness!) in the health department by a longshot. I make 1cup into 4 balls, and that's 3 breakfasts and a pick-me-up on the days with long shifts.

$5 per kit. I still want to add another type of candy.

Speaking of shifts, I'm taking advantage of the holiday season and working two jobs for the month of December. I wouldn't recommend this for anyone who isn't relatively strong, but have found that I can do just about anything for a month. At work, I've resisted the Keurig, and clung to sharing the pot with co-workers or using the single-cup aeropress.

These cute paper/cardboard boxes are $1.50 each at Daiso.

Tadaa! I may add some filler, like tissue paper or paper confetti.

I'm hearing a lot of creative Christmas gift ideas for keeping it cheap. My favorites include homemade fudge, hollowed-out false books, and a toilet-paper roll with cash stuffed inside. I've also gone some shopping at Daiso (Japanese dollar store - everything is $1.50+tx, but the selection is a cut above your typical dollar store) for my younger gift recipients. As a person who has moved and traveled a lot, I'm a huge fan of giving consumable gifts, which won't take up more room while someone feels obligated to keep something they may or may not actually like. I like gift cards, but I'm sure a lot of you who give those wonder how big a gift card is good enough?

Reflection on Gotham's Dark Knight

Over the last 2 months, my previously-Batman-less girlfriend and I have watched all 7 Batman films.

Batman: This original Batman has the same weakness that all of the live action movies have: not enough Batman roaming the shadows and laying down his own justice with various gadgets. That said, it DOES have my favorite Bruce Wayne. Micheal Keaton's Bruce Wayne is as quirky-looking as you'd expect for a rich person who lives in a creepy mansion, puts on a suit and stalks a scary city at night. This movie also has the most maturity to it, in that Wayne's romantic pursuit takes a while to develop, and there aren't a whole lot of neat effects to subdue the kids. This movie also has my favorite ending (top of the city hero shot + great score track).

Yes.

Batman Returns has an awesome opening sequence that gives you more to look at than credits. You also get to hear the Danny Elfman theme with more oomph. Batman Returns doesn't waste any time cutting to shit you want to see. Batman's backstory is established, so a little chaos in the streets brings one of the series'  great shots: Wayne stands with the Bat Signal on him to a music cue. This movie brings an interesting mood to it. It's still as dark as the first movie, but with a little comical twist. The part where Batman does a 180 in the Batmobile just to boost his flaming jet on the fire-spitting juggler comes to mind. Secretary Selina Kyle's relationship to shady CEO Max Shreck is also comical at times, and gets really jarring when he pushes her to her death. I still jump every time, even though I know it's coming. But good lord, this Catwoman is sexy, and it's pretty awesome that she considers getting even with her CEO once in for all worth sparing half of her nine lives. There's a scene when she talks to Penguin about working together and who's got the upper hand, and it's got innuendo, physical comedy, and two really good actors making a great moment.

Batman Forever is a favorite because a change in director brought such a goofy movie that only takes a nugget of itself seriously. This movie starts off with 30 minutes of one-liners and really stupid exposition. Then we get to see a return to darkness with brooding Bruce Wayne and Two-Face's killing of Dick Grayson's parents. This movie has a lot of style and color compared to its predecessors, and the Riddler is infinitely quotable and as Jim Carey as possible. Wayne's love interest in this is Dr Chase Meridian, which is probably the most gorgeous Nicole Kidman has ever looked. They throw more one-liners at each other, and some really light, obvious psychology, and then we get treated to one of the best shots in the Batman series. At some point, Batman jumps off a roof to chase the villains, and the camera pans up and down his figure, cape-a-flying as the theme gets  going. I feel like the director wasted this shot because our hero falls right through a tube to his own burial. Ahh well, the Bat vehicles are the best in the series. The final note is that I am a huge fan of the corny running towards the screen in slow motion at the end of the movie.

Batman and Robin doesn't have much going for it, as you can tell the film's agenda is in merchandise and partnerships with fast food. Poison Ivy is really sexy, but Bane sucks. Mr Freeze's jokes are hilarious, and George Clooney doesn't make a good Batman or Bruce Wayne. The vehicles are really impractical and look ugly. On the other hand, this movie has my favorite Batsuits with heavy leather capes and silver accents. The movie also boasts my favorite-looking Gotham. Both the Schumacher Batmans have Greek/Roman statues embedded in the city and buildings, and add great atmosphere to all of the chase scenes.

Sorry Nolan, didn't like your tumbler as much as the others.

10 years later, we get Christopher Nolan to direct 3 more-realistic, dark and serious but consistent movies. Batman Begins has really good suspense, and boy do they make you wait to see Batman...in all 3 movies. In almost 8 hours of the movie, you see Batman for a quarter of it. Christian Bale is neither my favorite Batman nor Wayne, but he certainly couldn't be accused of not trying. With the Nolan trilogy, we get consistently great acting, great lines, a great score, and some great combat. The first movie has some really great scenery, and Alfred is fantastic in the whole trilogy.

The Dark Knight is simply as perfect a movie as I could ever hope for. There's nothing else to add.

The Dark Knight Rises is severely lacking in Batman, and the Bat could possibly my least favorite vehicle in the franchise. I thought Bane was interesting, but to have some brains - intelligent villains with a plan are so much better to watch! They didn't spend enough time on Catwoman, and the story's crazy timeline was hard to ignore. The movie does, however, have my favorite music of the trilogy, which is Bane's menacing theme. I am very very interested in seeing Nolan direct a Batman team, whether he works together with Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, or all of them.

I may have botched a reference here or there, but it was really nice going through such an exciting and eccentric part of American culture with my girlfriend. She liked all of them, and ended up liking the last movie more than anyone else I know.