Sheeple Magazine July Archive

VIA Rail Canada Better for your Enemies than a Vacation!

By Wilbur Corncon at 07/23/08 19:56

A few excerpts from [404 Check: was link to http:/ / www. viarail. ca/ corporate/ en_ entr_ viar. html, anchor: VIA Rail Canada Inc.]

Our Vision : At VIA, we will be the Canadian leader of service excellence in passenger transportation.

What they meant to say: At VIA Rail Canada we will have the reservation process so convoluted and crazy that you can expect to have your credit card canceled by your bank and seek mental health care for recovery from the stress imposed on you by our online reservation system!

Read more: VIA Rail Canada Better for your Enemies than a Vacation! [click]

A Darker Tone for the new Batman

I finally got to go see the most anticipated movie of the summer, The Dark Knight. For those of you who don't know what that is, its the sequel to the 2005 movie, Batman Begins, so yes its a Batman movie.

I recommend this movie to everyone.

This series really isn't tied to the older Batman movies, you know the ones from the early 90's. This series takes on a more realistic and darker tone. You can actually believe this could happen because the characters and villains are blown out of proportion.

I'll admit, the biggest reason I went to see this movie is because The Joker looked completely sadistic, which is what the villain was in the old comics. The Joker was better than I had hoped for; Heath Ledger put on an Oscar performance. Its too bad Mr. Ledger has recently passed away, he was an awesome actor.

But then upon seeing more movie trailers, I saw that the character Harvey Dent was in the movie as well. Knowing my Batman lore, I knew Dent would somehow turn into the villain Two-Face. I won't reveal anything, so don't worry.

I can't really say if a third movie will come around. Like I said before, this series takes a more realistic tone. That means no villains or characters with unnatural abilities. The Joker was just plain crazy, no powers.

Maybe that's why I like the new Batman series so much more than the old ones. You can actually believe there's a city called Gotham and the villains are real.

Plans Have Changed For Me

I was recently looking into buying Rock Band through Amazon for the Wii. As always, Amazon had great prices but I wanted to look into Rock Band a little more.

Turns out Rock Band for the Wii isn't all what its cut out to be. Look at these three reasons why:

1)You can't play online like Guitar Hero 3 could.

2)No downloadable content whatsoever.

3)The Guitar Hero 3 controller isn't compatible with the game.

The third reason is what really got me. I already have Guitar Hero 3, so upon buying Rock Band, my GH3 controller will be rendered useless. I'll only be able to get three people playing instead of four(which is the best way).

The first two reasons didn't bother me too much, seeing how I've lived with Dial-up for such a long time.

But all is not lost. I'll be waiting for Rock Band 2, which comes around the holiday season. I'll have to look into what it can do and see if it resolves those three reasons.

If the problems for the Wii Rock Band series continue, you can bet I'll be putting my money back into the Guitar Hero series.

MapQuest - Fooling you into a false sense of security

For those of you that don't know what MapQuest is, its basically an online atlas that gives you directions. Say you're going on a trip and you don't know how to get to your destination. All you have to do is type in the address of your starting point and ending point and the system will do the rest for you. It almost seems like its too good to be true. Well, nothing that good can be true.

You see, MapQuest has made mistakes for me twice; in the last two months. The first instance was when I was traveling to Myrtle Beach with friends of mine. Everything went fine until we had to take Exit 19A-135, or something like that. We were on the correct road and followed the directions precisely. Then came Exit 19A and my friends and I knew what was coming next. But the fact was, we didn't know what was next. The next exit was Exit 19B, not the Exit with all the crazy numbers. It was a good thing I had my REAL atlas and then we found our way back to the road we should have been on.

The other mistake it gave me was the other day. I was visiting my aunt's house in Pennsylvania and my cousins and I decided to go to a theme park called Kennywood. Neither they or I really knew how to get through Pittsburgh to get there, so my cousin did MapQuest. Everything was fine until the directions told us to take a right on a road instead of turning left like we should have. Upon taking the right and five minutes later, we found ourselves in a shady neighborhood. After 15 minutes of driving around we decided to go back to the original intersection and tale the left instead. We were at Kennywood in five minutes.

After these two occurences, I have decided one thing. MapQuest will never be used again on my computer. Its a 50/50 chance it'll get you to your destination which is really a good chance at all. If you ask me, always take a road atlas with you and rely on that.

Spirit Air how to make a reservation, or get nibbled to death by ducks!

I made the mistake of booking a flight on Spirit Air. When my wife first showed me their webpage, I said.. WAIT! That's not really the airlines website.. that is some stupid travel affiliate website!

Their page title "cheap tickets, cheap flights, discount airfare, cheap hotels, cheap car rentals, cheap travel" sounds like the creation of some cheap seo company in India and not a U.S. Airline!

Read more: Spirit Air how to make a reservation, or get nibbled to death by ducks! [click]

Confused About Campaign Commercials

The other day I was just relaxing and watching the television. The commercials come on and bore me with products I'll never buy. Then comes on a presidential campaign commercial. First it starts talking about what all John McCain has done well for us and will do well for us. Next it talks about how Barack Obama has said no to many important issues that will benefit us. That's when I realized it was a McCain commercial. But the next part confused me to no end.

The last part of the commercial said, Barack Obama, 97% of the something vote thing. I can't remember what the last part was, but it was unimportant. The message stayed there for awhile. It was then I realized I had no idea what the commercial was trying to tell me. Does it want me to vote for Obama too? All I know is if that are more commercials like that, I may have to vote for both candidates because I won't know who the better pick is.