The Idiot’s Guide to Dish-Washing: Volume 1

Issue 1: But it says it cleans dishes!

(click bold text for images)

When out of dish-washing detergent, do not try to be clever and resourceful. Doing so may result in an overflowing jubilee of bubbles, dirty dish water, and harmful abrasive cleaning agents. Listen to your conscience while you are pouring your solution (no pun intended) into the soap dispenser; The bad shoulder will tell you: “pour, POUR- for you are brilliant!” while the good shoulder will tell you: “don’t be hasty, for this does not seem right.” In other words, when it says Detergent Only it means “Try it just once Dipshit… just one time and you’ll see.“

(This issue has been brought to you by Ajax Dish Liquid & Soap, a whole bunch of towels, and my spotted dishes.)

So yeah, I had a little run-in with the dish-washer this weekend. Needless to say, it took about 1 hour and 8 large towels to clean up the 4 or 5 square yards of bubbles. In light of the recent events, my Mountain Dew has never tasted better- and that ain’t just the soap residue talkin.

Until next time.
- Jethro

I humbly apologize for not having a vent last week and for having this one a day late.

There’s been so much going on lately, that I can’t even remember the last week. So much insane stuff happened last week that I wanted to talk about, that is almost ate itself and I now have no recollection of any of it, so I’m here starting from scratch with nothing. Well, now that I think about it, I think my memory has been shot because of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Let’s see, I finally bought an Xbox Tuesday so I could play this game. The game came out Thursday. I played it for 6 hours Thursday. Friday my bastard friend decided to stop by my house unexpectedly, and I ended up going fishing in the evening, and getting really ripped that night. Saturday. Ah Saturday. I woke up at 1:00pm and played KOTOR until 3am. I think I ate dinner or something. Sunday I played for a good 5 hours before spending some quality time with the lady. That’s about right because the counter in the game says I’ve played for 21 hours. The funny thing is, I’m only about 10% done with the game. Seeing as how that’s all I can recall from last week, I guess we can safely assume that the video game has consumed the large portion of cells in my brain used to store my short-term memory. It’s definately one of the best games I have played in a while.

On to another video game subject.

Now that I have an Xbox, I sense that my addiction habits, as well a disorder I have that I like to call TMDGB “Too Many Games to Beat” are going to skyrocket. By purchasing an Xbox, I have opened the portal to a whole new realm of games I can buy. I’ve increased the potential margin of wasted pay check by at least 20% I’ve also increased the probability that I won’t beat my other games by a good 80% (of course that’s excluding the residual and the standard deviation, and including a slight variance.)

Lets take a look at the games I own that I still haven’t beaten (many of them I have barely STARTED) The funny thing is. I can honestly say that every single one of these games is totally awesome (I would reccomend every single one,) and I really enjoy playing it. There isn’t one of these games that I don’t play because I don’t like it. And believe me, there are some games I have left off on this list because I’m at work and I’m just thinking off the top of my head (whoever came up with that expression anyways?)

PC
Divine Divinity (10%)
Freelancer (55%)
Heroes of Might and Magic IV (5%)
Max Payne (20%)
Morrowind (50%)
Morrowind: Tribunal (10%)
Morrowind: Bloodmoon (1%)
Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield (40%)
Stronghold (10%)
Z: Steel Soldiers (20%)

Nintendo Gamecube
Eternal Darkness (15%)
Mario Sunshine (35%)
Metroid Prime (10%)
Skies of Arcadia: Legends (20%)
Super Smash Brothers Mele (60%)
Zelda: Wind Waker (45%)

Playstation 2
SOCOM: US Navy Seals (60%)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (10%)
Rygar: The Legendary Hero (20%)

Xbox
Halo (20%)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (20%)

This is excluding the fact that I take part in Planetside (a huge massive multiplayer ongoing war) and am an active member in the Raven Shield clan [BGE]

The fact is, that I just don’t have enough time to beat these games. These are all fairly new titles too (within the last year or two.) It’s a shame really. The shitty part is that awesome new games are always coming out that consume my time that could be spent beating one of my other games (for instance KOTOR right now.) Another contributer is that most of the games listed above have quite a large amount of game time. I also have this problem when I get really wrapped up in a game where I’m afraid to beat it because I don’t want it to end.

I love all of these games, I just can’t find the time to spend with all of them. I feel like a parent who just started work again and feels like they’re neglecting their children.

So I guess about now some of you were expecting me to do something like “so I’ve decided to give away my games to those who can treat them better.” Hell no.

But the sad thing is, two years ago, I would have have probably had all of these games beaten. If you haven’t graduated high school yet: “You gotta cherish it.” - Billy Madison

Here’s a scary thought. Take the 19 games I listed. Add 4 because thats about how many I probably left off. Multiply that by the retail value of $50. Multiply that by an average of .7 (I don’t buy all my games at retail price- sales, Ebay, etc) And you will see just about how much money I’ve spent on just games in the last year. For all you lazy bastards that’s $805. I don’t even want to factor in the money I could have made from the hours of work I’ve missed becase of them.

The new site that will eventually take the place of this section of cousin-kevin.com is in the makings! It’s going to be called “Everything Whatsoever” and we have the domain everythingwhatsoever.com I am hoping
to have the site up and running in a couple weeks woohoo! *goes back to playing KOTOR instead of working on site*

Until next time.
- Jethro

So I was having a unique discussion with a collegue of mine the other day… It wasn’t but a few days ago when an aquaintance… An interesting thing occured to me the other day whilest…

I give up!

So I had a hangover the other day and was chatting with my friend Travis. During this conversation which I can hardly recollect, an interesting topic came up when I said “lol” It all started when my next statement was something along the lines of “I’m really not laughing though dude, it wasn’t that funny.” We’re all guilty of it. Whether it’s your best friend, a family member, an online buddy, or some person you have never met before, we’ve all singed these three letters into our conversations to
maintain a friendly environment. When I tell you “man my head hurts” I am saying it with fully knowledge that the reply is going to be “lol.” However, I have noticed that the lol can be used for a variety of things. In fact, I am a firm believer that “lol” is one of the most versatile phrases in existance.

The lol

-The lol is commonly used as a quick response to let someone know that you actually read what they wrote.

Example:
TychoFries16: man I got a terrible hangover

AwesomeSauce07: lol, party too hard last night?

TychoFries16: yeah man

-The lol is also often used to politely end someone’s rambling nonsense.

Example:
TychoFries16: The lol is also often used to politely end someone’s rambling nonsense.

AwesomeSauce07: lol

-20 minutes later-

TychoFries16: Hello?

The LOL

-The LOL tends to make us feel like we actually said something funny. However, there are certain people out there (I tend to refer to them as LOLers) that think
that replacing the lol with the LOL is common tongue (as in the previous examples.) This is false lol practice and I myself frown upon LOLers.

Example:
TychoFries16: I talked to a girl last night.

AwesomeSauce07: LOL

AwesomeSauce07: good one

Example of LOL mis-use:
TychoFries: man I got a terrible hangover

AwesomeSauce: LOL, party too hard last night?

TychoFries: uh… yeah

The LOL!

- The exclamation point generally emphasizes the lolness of your lol. However, adding exclamation points really only works when used in conjunction with the LOL (as opposed to the lol) The dullness of the lol does not mix well with the excitement of the ! It’s like getting excited about doing the laundry (not that I ever do that.) It just doesn’t work. Remember that the more exclamation points, the more lolness you give your lol (unless you’re just plain being a smart ass.)

Example:
TychoFries16: I talked to a girl last night.

AwesomeSauce07: LOL

TychoFries16: I’m serious.

AwesomeSauce07: LOL!

TychoFries16 signed off

The lol…

- This nastly little fellow is the most harsh of all the lols. The lol… is the antonym of LOL! (to the layman that means EXACT OPPOSITE.) When someone lol…s you, they are telling you straight up that they aren’t laughing and they want you to shut the hell up (in fact, it may have very well made them angry.) They don’t even give it the chance of questioning. Sorry folks there’s no “maybe he really laughed?” with this one. To avoid further embarassment, (and to satisfy the other end of your conversation) you are best off just changing the subject, ending the chat, or just plain signing off.

Example:
TychoFries16: I got really wasted last night.

AwesomeSauce07: lol…

TychoFries16: So what are you doing today?

AwesomeSauce07: my dad was an alcoholic

TychoFries16 signed off

Other Forms

The hehe and haha

- hehes and hahas can also be included in the lol diction (they can also appear in the forms of heheh and hahah). Don’t be tricked by hehes and hahas. While they are generally more rare than a lol they are exactly the same thing! The ! and the … rules also apply to hehes and hahas. The capitalization rule also applies to haha (HAHA) while it is less frequently applied to hehe. The unique thing with hehes and hahas is that you can add one or more he or ha to them to give emphasis on your lolness. Generally when you get four hes or has from me, I thought it was pretty funny. If you are fortunate enough to recieve a HAHAHAHA!!! from me, I’m really sitting there cracking up.

lolness Chart

So I promised you all “BIG” news last week. Well I’m not going to get into all the details just yet, but I’ll give ya the skinny.

Tim Ballisty (a friend of mine of Convolution fame) and I will be launching a site that will consist of our joint efforts. For the most part it will be Jeff’s Vent and the Convolution combined (although he vouches to continue the Convolution,) but it’s definately either something to get really excited about, or something to fear.

I’ll be working on (among many other things) the design this week. (I’m even going to try and get the artist from Penny Arcade to do avatars for us!) Hopefully we will be up and running within 2 weeks. I’ll let you know more about the site as it progresses.

Until next time.
- Jethro