Wednesday 30 May 2007

Delmorpha.com live now!

Delmorpha.com is officially live now! It will be the home of everything thanks to 250GB of data... if you need anything online (like your own Flickr style photo storage etc etc) just give me a shout.. i have plenty of bandwidth and you can even have your own sub domain!

I will be dual posting for the next few weeks until everything is designed nicely and all my content is over there but update your bookmarks as it will be my only blog soon.

Monday 28 May 2007

Who the fuck are these douchebags?

"Look at me.... I'm a giant cock!"

I fucking hate stock photographs. One thing guaranteed to make me close your website down and to then go to a competitor, even if they have higher prices, are stock photographs... especially when the models look like these fuck nuggets...

How do these people live with themselves... I mean, photos like this are like a permanent bad hair cut cast into cyberspace for everyone to see... take the guy on the left for example. This is what will happen when his friends see it.

"Isn't that Peter..??"
"Yeah... what the fuck is he doing?!"
"I don't actually know... it looks like he's sucking off a dog, or perhaps even a horse... its definitely a large mammal of some description..."
"Did you know he did animal porn?"
"No.."
"I bet you did... "
"...I didn't... honest.."
"Lets avoid him in any case.. what a fucking freak.."

Seriously... have some self respect... stock models unite and just say no to stupid fucking poses!

Moving to my own webserver soon... watch this space...

I've been publishing online for over 10 years now and have been to and fro with my own websites and web servers, whether they were crappy 50mb web spaces, blog spaces or my own Linux ones, I've always been tinkling with online content. Having access to my own has usually been relative to my job/financial situation and once I move on, nothing ties me back to a definitive location. I feel now I need my own again.. I mean I have 2 blogs that need backing up ASAP, and a laundry list of domains I've registered that need content, and I also need to start work on a website for my aunts shop, so a $7 a month webserver with a few terabytes of bandwidth is definitely needed, and needed soon.

I will be posting at delmorpha.com once my domain registration goes through and double posting here until the new server is working correctly and looks good - this is more of a heads up that I will be moving onwards and upwards in the near future, and to keep your eyes peeled for an all new site... at least this way you'll have one less word to type when visiting me...

Winning Eleven X Achievement Translation - ヨーロッパチャンピオンシップ優勝

There is one difference in the achievements to Winning Eleven X (Japanese/Asian) and Winning Eleven 2007 (US Version) on the 360. The American version has "The Puma Cup" whereas the Japanese version has ヨーロッパチャンピオンシップ優勝

A Google translation of ヨーロッパチャンピオンシップ優勝 is "European Championship Victory" and I assume you do this in the Master League. I am missing a few of the WEX achievements at the moment and this was the only one I didn't know what it was... once I get online at my new place I will be giving anyone who wants some a run for their money on XBL, and hopefully gaining some more achievement points!!

My Xbox profile is on the right, if you want a whooping, just add me to your friends list and I'll see you online!

Sunday 27 May 2007

A New Colour of Wiimote Strap - Now in Navy Blue!


I recently saw someone who had used Rit Dye on their Wiimote strap on Kotaku and thought it looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a whirl myself today. I have to say it looks frigging awesome and got me to thinking about doing it on the actual joypad, both a Wiimote, and a Xbox 360 controller!

As you can see from my pictures, the dyeing works really well, and gets into the plastic brilliantly leaving no streaking or banding. It really could be an official Nintendo Navy Strap... you wouldn't be able to notice.


I have been told explicitly from the eBayer we bought the Rit dye from that you are best using US branded Rit dye as it is much stronger than the European equivalent, especially when it comes to fixing. As its plastic too, I would definitely recommend a US Rit dye (thats what I used) as the results are superb!

As it worked so well, I was intrigued as to what else would dye perfectly. My first thoughts are Amys Xbox 360 joypad.. which is going to look amazing in Rose Pink. Unfortuately Microsoft were kind enough to use pinned Torx 8 screws in the pad, so I need to send off for the screwdriver head before I can start on that. Next is the Wiimote itself, but again custom tri-directional screws stop short term tampering, until I get that screwdriver in the post too.

Both the Wiimote and the wireless 360 pad are going to look awesome in pink when I can get them apart, and both should be relatively easy to do. The joypads both lend themselves to a pastel pink given the things I wont be dyeing (i.e. the bumpers and grey dpad/analogue sticks on the 360 and the buttons on the Wiimote).

What this example is one of the cover bays cut in half with a hacksaw. I dyed one half in my boil bath and used the other half to stir and flip it. The results are astounding.

The dyed side is superbly rich in colour and the finish is consistence and streak free. The dye doesnt come off the plastic when i rub it with my finger, so long term use in gaming should be fine. Dying a full joypad with Rit dye is going to be the dogs bollocks! Watch this space for my how to guide on how to change the colour of your Wiimote or your Xbox 360 joypad coming soon!

Saturday 26 May 2007

"Advanced" Networking on the Wii - Fixing Error Code 52130, 52131 or 52132

I've had my Wii since December 2006 and to be quite honest its had at most, 20 hours of on time. Considering in the time since Christmas I've spent 60 hours on Oblivion on the 360, the New Nintendo Super Console hasn't had much action at all from what you might call a hardened gamer.

Today I'm on "Leisure Support" from home, which gives me a chance to catch up with all those nerdy jobs I never get around to, like installing this new PCI SATA controller in my PC to boost me up to half a terabyte of storage, and sorting out the WiFi issues I was having with my Wii.

To be honest, the Wii online for me is a bit like having internet access on the phone. Its a bit of a gimmick every now and then, and more frustrating because of the crappy 480p screen on my 1080i capable TV. Whats even more frustrating is I can't even use the Wii as a Wireless Pandora box thanks to Opera not utilising the limited amount of memory on the Gamecube Wii well enough, but somehow it manages to play YouTube content.. oh and Last.FM seems to work too.

In any case,wireless on my Wii has never really worked properly, probably due to the advanced setup of my network, or so I assumed until today. I've updated once or twice but its been insanely slow when it has worked and rather than Google for the problem, I've left it as I was really that bothered in the first place. The Virtual Console being the CashCow/joke it is can fuck right off and everything else online-wise is just shit.

I run a Linksys WRT54G with the custom DD-WRT firmware on it.. and what an excellent piece of firmware it is too. My wireless network is setup with Mac filtering and encrypted with WPA and I assumed thats what the Wii was having trouble with... that or the fact I only have about 40% signal strength according to the DD-WRT for the Wii when I tried to fix by assigning an IP address with DHCP.

What I've found worked with the Wii was for me to switch the router to channel 1 and to change the DNS to an external range... *shrugs* .... god knows why it worked but it did... maybe the Gamecube Wii has issues with non-unique channels on a network and doesn't like to query an internal DNS..who knows..

If you are having problems with the Gamecube Wii online with the error codes 52130, 52131 or 52132, you will already know the Nintendo official explanation is practically useless telling you to "ensure your wireless interference is not causing the problem". How exactly could you do that without some advanced tools for detecting the signal strength or noise levels, things that most standard router firmwares don't actually have... and the fucking Gamecube Wii certainly doesn't have anything other than that shitty error code!

The real solution is to try and change you wireless channel to either 1 or 11. Either of those channels should solve any potential interfering external networks as they are solus wireless channels. For some reason my Gamecube Wii spits the dummy out on channel 6.

I also changed my DNS to an external DNS like 62.69.64.134/135 for example. As I did this at the same time as changing the wireless channel Im not 100% sure which solved it! :) (Im also too lazy to delete one and see it was the other that did it...)

Finally, from a network admin point of view, I would also recommend using static IP addresses, turning off DHCP on your router, setting up Mac filtering and limiting the amount of connections you can have at once to the amount of wireless applications your household needs.

This is just good advice for wireless networking security in general and is infinitely better advice than just turning on encryption and thinking you're secure.. and if you're only using WEP then god help you!

Consider this wireless networking analogy. You have a nightclub with protection to get in. WEP Encryption is like having bouncers on the door that will let you in by SHOUTING the password at them... the trouble is it makes it pretty easy for anyone listening to hear the password, say it to the bouncers and get in.

By turning off DHCP, setting up MAC filtering and limiting the amount of connections you can have, your bouncer has now boosted his IQ by 30 points, putting him just over the "retard" boundary! He now checks peoples membership to the club (MAC filtering), he won't just give out free membership to hot sluts who just asked for a membership card (DHCP) and even knows when the club is full!

You still might want to have a club password that can be either SHOUTED (WEP) or whispered (WPA, WPA2 or ideally WPA2 with RADIUS detection) for that added protection, but if we can limit who we actually let in too, rather than letting any old fool in with the right password, were going to have a much safer nightclub. Encryption will also black out the windows so no-one can see how bad your dancing is from the outside... you can hopefully now see why you might want to learn a bit more about wireless networking, and consider changing your password thats still set to "password"..

The MAC address of the Gamecube Wii can be found in Wii Settings -> Internet -> Console Information.

Friday 25 May 2007

My blog looks great in Vista................ I'm such a whore... :(

Thats right, I'm triple booting my laptop between XP Pro, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (which I'm still having issues with on this Aspire 1600) and now............ Vista Business Edition. The worst part; I actually kind of like Vista...

The first obvious point is its quite pretty as far as a Windows OS goes, and once you get most of the grubby things turned off and classic views up, it actually looks a lot nicer and is much easier on the eye that the "My First Operating System" that was XPs interface. I still use Classic View in XP to this day, but I can see me leaving Vista View on and actually missing it when I have to boot into XP.

My 4 year old laptop has no issues with its hardware either. Old XP driver worked for the SigmaTel soundcard and the Agere modem which weren't installed by Vista, but even the Mobility Radeon 9000 drivers were installed and working correctly.. something XP didn't even do.

The install wasn't without its hiccups however. I recently lost one of my RAM modules to Corruption and have been running the laptop with one 256mb DDR module. After installing my Corporate version of XP from my offices Action Pack, I grabbed the Vista upgrade DVD and stuck it in. It wouldn't even consider my machine as it had less than 512mb of RAM. This pissed me off given one of the better features Vista can do is to use a pen drive as a cheap alternative to RAM/accessing a slower HDD. Microsoft want people to upgrade their RAM as well as buy XP "Service Pack 3" apparently...

I mean what a fucking stupid test in the first place. My laptop has a 2.8Ghz processor and a Radeon 9000 graphics cards, which even by todays standards is a pretty good spec for a laptop. Its a bit short on memory because of the fault, but why should the base install of an Operating System give a shit that I don't have 512mb of RAM? I'm the one who chooses to run the programs in its environment and I'm happy for them to run from the page file albeit a little a lot slower. It quite literally wouldn't let me continue... I had to borrow a 512mb stick from works storage before I could upgrade to Vista! I then took that out and Vista still continued to run fine with 256mb.

The install took forever... almost 2 hours. If we have to continue forward with Vista in the future for clients, the first machine install before creating an image to build with is going to be like pulling teeth. Its not even interesting nor does it relay helpful information to let you know whats going on. There were two occasions I actually thought the machine had crashed, only for it to jump back to life again moments later to the screen it was previously on.

Another thing is its fucking huge... like 7 gigabytes huge. I can accept a good Linux distribution like Fedora Core being around the 4 or 5 gigabyte install range knowing that practically every application I will ever need are installed from the get go, including OpenOffice, programming suites, photo editing tools, movie and music players, games, hell.. even a 3D modelling package or two, but seriously... Vistas install is around the 6 gigabyte mark and is just an Operating System shell - it even commented on the partition I was using wasn't big enough - it recommended I used another partition as my 8000mb partition was 500mb too small for optimal performance, but unlike the start of the install, it didn't throw its rattle out of the pram and allowed me to continue.

Some people might turn around and say "big whoop, I have nearly a terabyte of HD space, 6 gig is nothing" but when a clean install really doesn't have that much in the way of extra software, it makes me paranoid about all the extra crap thats buried deep in this Titanic. I remember thinking that 200mb for Windows 98 was a bit big and was forever finding ways to get rid of unneeded files back in the day. Granted that PC only had a 2GB hard drive, but still.... 6 gigabytes is taking the piss...

We'll see how Vista goes with it for a little while... I haven't tried to do anything interesting with it yet, like run a DivX movie, MP3s I may or may not legitimately have acquired or come across any of the other DRM demons I know they've built into it... but I'm sure I will, and when I do I'll be straight back to dual booting!

Thursday 24 May 2007

Scum of the Earth - Harvesting Email Addresses for profit

If you ever believed that some people are pure evil shat from the very depths of Hell then I had proof of it today.

Chain emails are a regular thing in my mailbox, and being a bit more IT savvy than most I just ignore them. I'll take the gypsy curses, the bad luck and risk not getting my millions from the widow of a Nigerian Queen to protect the email addresses of my nearest and dearest. Today I received one that turned even my own stomach to the levels of depravity some people will go to make money.

The email was entitled FW: Help find Madeleine McCann and entailed the following heart felt story :
PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE AND FORWARD IT TO EVERYBODY IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK...

Please read this message and pass it on!!!!!!!!!

As you are aware my niece, Madeleine, is still missing and I am asking everyone I know to send this as a chain letter i.e. you send it to everyone you know and ask them to do the same, as the story is only being covered in Britain, Eire and Portugal. We don't believe that she is in Portugal anymore and need to get her picture and the story across Europe as quickly as possible. Suggestions are welcome.



Phil McCann


Unfortunately this is not an attempt to find this poor little girl, it is a scam being ran by some very sick individuals, using other peoples pain and the face of something very much in the public eye to harvest email addresses. If there was ever a time to wake up and stop forwarding this kind of email, now was it..


Why is this a scam?

Well for one, if suggestions are welcome, why are there no contact details on the email. They spent the time to get a picture, but Phil McCann who is so desperate for suggestions according to this email forgot to add his own email address and telephone number. There isn't even any of the obvious places to start, including the obvious Portuguese Police/MET Office/Home Office/Child Protection Agencies. There is even an official Find Madeleine website at http://www.findmadeleine.com/ which these douche bags aren't even good enough to make reference to.

This is tried and trusted trick employed by 419 scammers who start most of the shite forwards everyone has seen. The email I received probably had 500 email addresses in it and although most email forwards stay between a "5 hop" social group, eventually someone unwittingly forwards it to a "friend" from MySpace/Yahoo/etc who is actually a 419 scammer in disguise. They then have a nice catch of how ever many hops it took to reach them with X^Y email addresses in and before you can say "No thank you", you are already wanting to buy viagra, inherit Brewsters Millions or you've won the Spanish Lottery and forgot to claim.

The sad truth is some scumfuck is going to make money out of that email, money that most definitely won't go to help find that little girl.


What can I do to stop this?

One thing - STOP FORWARDING EMAILS LIKE THIS! Use a bit of common sense when forwarding anything, including jokes, chain letters, etc. If you are going to forward emails, make sure you actually know every person on your mailing list.

In this case, yes, we all want to find this little girl alive and well (as well as reprimand the parents for their own idiocy, but lets find her before we lay into them..) but it only takes one person to forward that email to a 419 scammer and you've unwittingly exposed a huge quantity of people to potentially get ripped off.

Scam baiting is a technique where the person who was originally sent the email reverses the scam on the send and tries to goad the scammer into wasting their time and sometimes even their money with the false promise of a big return.. in exactly the same way the scam artist was trying it on with them. The law is a bit ropey when it comes to this and it is potentially dangerous so if you are thinking of "prison justice" for these scumbags, you didn't get the idea from me...


Further Reading

For more information about 419 scammers and scambaiting visit http://www.419eater.com and Shiver MeTimbers will give you the lowdown on how they work, and how you can get back at them. I will reiterate his warning that if you're thinking of going after these fuckers, be very, very careful. As my post shows, they really are the Scum of the Earth.

Tuesday 22 May 2007

500 Words really isn't enough for me to moan in - BBC News Have Your Say Comments

I still like to have my say so I thought I would share just in case you don't spot my comments on the BBC! 500 words really isn't enough for me and I had to reword what little I could fit in several times, but here it is!

Do you support road pricing trial plans?

Are pay-as-you-drive road charges the right way to tackle congestion?

It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is an attempt to generate more cash to plough into something that needs addressing at the source rather than at our pockets.

Tighter controls need to be placed on how Road Tax is used to maintain our roads and regulate the work being done thus saving time and money. Roadworks companies make a killing at the tax payers expense and we do nothing to address that. I can't remember the last time I drove through road works and saw some work being done.

As it currently stands at 5000 votes, 80% of which do not support the governments bid to introduce PAYG road pricing. There was a major petition recently regarding it on the official government website too that received over 5 million 1.8 Million registered votes, but the government continues to put its fingers in its ears and go "la la la la".

Seriously, when will they listen (never) - road tax goes up and up every year and the problems get worse and worse. As one commenter says "The proposal has nothing to do with tackling congestion - it's just another tax." and this is damn right.

That and the increasing Nanny State that is the UK - the government would have little black boxes in every car in the country tracking your every move. Cross reference that with the DVLA database, biometric data on your passport/driving licence and that seems like the perfect surveillance tool. All we need now is the cameras in every room telling us not to do that when were scratching ourselves...and even thats almost in place in some towns...

Thursday 17 May 2007

The Axis of Evil - North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Tesco...

Having been downgraded from the Blackpool Tesco Mega Store to a local Tesco Express for my lunchbreak I was expecting to have a little less choice. What I wasn't expecting was a totalitarian choice of items...

I recall watching a documentary recently that stated Tescos market share as a supermarket was over 50% and fast approaching "monopoly" status due to their constant expansions and blocking of other retailers building on sites that might otherwise be good for a supermarket by buying land at overinflated prices and simply sitting on it.

As my more active blog readers will know, I'm not a fan of Tescos own brand Cup a Soup to say the least.. and what did I find was the only choice of cup form soup. Tescos. So this got me interested in product placement in these smaller "express" shops that are replacing the smaller outlets in towns and villages.

Tescos can obviously afford to run small losses in these shops in view of the bigger picture. I just worry were inadvertently becoming slaves to Tescos and what they deem it acceptable to buy. As a society though, we will only have ourselves to blame if it does happy.. no one cares about anything other than price when it comes to consumables, without a single thought to where its come from or how its been produced.

In any case, I had a shufftey round Tescos Express to see if there were any other totalitarian style buys and they do it with a lot of the little non-essentials that you might want and not be so disappointed they don't have your favourite brand. It probably would've gone under the radar if it hadn't have been that god awful soup...

This probably goes a big way to help control the losses they must be making in these smaller outlets.. Tescos own brand products (besides the Finest range) are hardly renown for their quality and they're usually only slightly cheaper than the products their attempting to clone.

So George, if you do happen to stumble across my blog when you're reading, do me a favour... next time you're referring to the "Axis of Evil", stick Tesco in there too when you're reaming off the nations you probably shouldn't be pissing off... when you're impeached/voted out/have to step down, it might be one of the only things you will be looked back upon to have got right...

Wednesday 16 May 2007

Delving inside the Madness - A little insight... part 1 : Kimo and Diggs

For those living room psychologists out there that might want to know where some of my anger/crazy comes from I just thought I'd start sharing some of my childhood memories with the world. I'm going to start with a couple of young boys known as "Kimo and Diggs".

High school was a bit of a mixed bag for me; I went from being Head Boy at my Primary School to losing all respect for those that strive for roles like that, seeing the secret handshakes, hidden winks and favours that are so true in Life and hated the fact they existed. Primary School was how things should be, best man for the job and all that, High School inadvertently introduced me to the fact that if Mummy or Daddy was on the PTA or some other bullshit extra curricular activities, you found it much easier to schmooze into roles of "power". It only takes a few of these instances to knock any energy out of an intelligent kid and jade their perspective on life forever...lol...

In any case, this relates to "Kimo and Diggs" how I hear you ask. Well, Kimo was my nickname from 13 to 16 due to when I shaved my head and I looked like a kid going through chemotherapy. So I've never been able to spell, sue me..

"Diggs" is my good buddy Phil, so names because of his Butthead style sideburns, or "diggers" as they we otherwise know. Phil is some of the reason I got through high school alive, and I'm sure he'd be happy for me say this was true vice-versa.

The answer to"why" is because when predators have the potential to surround little fish the best form is to stick together and deflect oncoming attacks onto others. I'm not necessarily proud of this, but it was a survival technique we felt we had to use.

Kimo and Diggs were the foundation of my first band called "The Stars Collection". We put on little skits in our Religious Education class "mocking the afflicted" (one of our motto's) and sung the songs we wrote to the music of cheesy pop music like Dancing Queen by Abba. We even had a miniature keyboard we used for a backing beat (we were poor kids after all and couldn't afford the luxuries of pianos or music lessons).

We had various "victims" we tortured with our humiliating songs have probably been scarred for life. Martin Kendrick, the poor guy, probably committed suicide long ago - a boy with perpetual bad luck and really did look like an extra from Space Precinct. His eyes were so far apart they may as well have been on the side of his head, and was nicknamed "Guppy" accordingly. He bought a brand new Manchester United football shirt with Mark Hughes 10 on the back, only for the very next day for him to announce he had been sold to another club. A boy we wrote a song called "Chernobyl Disaster" about his grotesque appearance.

Tim Smith was also another victim of our mental abuse. This boy told so many lies to make himself look cooler than he actually was, we didn't know where the truth began and the bullshit ended. We wrote "Homeless Queen" along to the aforementioned Abba track with the lyrics "Homeless Queen, busking and playing his tambourine - You will laugh, he will cry, spending the rest of his life..in a box... do do dooo... he is the Homeless Queen". I'm sure there was a track about him giving head for crack but time has hazed my memory a little... that and head butting Sonic Blastman one too many times and having the ability to roll "cigarettes" involving more than one rizla and cone....

Tims story is also funny as he was the school bitch and got picked on even by the nerds and geeks. I don't remember him ever getting a lunch at school.. he was involved in what can only be described as a human fox hunt and he was the fox. We had something called a "bag job" at school where you would fill you bag with the heaviest books you could find and then beat the shit out of someone with it. Tim and his daily fox hunt experience involved a field full of kids taking it in turns to chase him to the point of exhaustion, then upon his collapse, the whole field would pile in to "bag job" Tim. You think after a few times he would just give in straight away, take the beating and just get on with his lunch, but no, Tim ran.. well, hobbled... one of his nicknames was "Rickets" due to his comical inability to run.

Kids have it tough at high school and I was no different.. I just dealt with it in a slightly different way to most by making a show of things to deflect the bullying. The Stars Collection was Phil and my first accepted fan base and people actually liked what we did. We were funny and weird and in a time of Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy and all the other weird and funny things MTV were doing at the time and people liked it. We were still outsiders but people knew who were were and to leave us alone or feel the wrath of our songs that the rest of class would be singing about them...

So thats that... we were the original Tenacious D... *rock* :)

Site of the Week - Cuntscorner.com : A followup to "I Hate Natasha Bedingfield" tribute

Knowing the time I spent letting the world know how much I hate Natasha Bedingfield, I felt I was obliged to add her to this site when I stumbled upon it this evening from a link on UKResistance.

Just in case your internet has some kind of filtering on it to block certain rude URLs, here is the rudeness I added to the site.

Stalking, crazy, noise polluting cunt guilty of crimes against music. If the recent release of "I want to have your babies" isn't enough, her horselike appearance makes her a definite cunt. Horses are cunts too, but not quite as much as old Natasha..

There are probably thousands upon thousands of people I could add to this site, but Horseface is my hate flavour of the month so I thought I would do some self promotion by tagging the image and get her on there. I felt I needed to get a bit of horse hate in there too (probably some of the reason I hate Natasha Bedingfield) but I think I've got my main point across now!

There are some funny additions on there, including Jamie Oliver and Davina McCall, and the site is worth checking out to kill 10 minutes of your day if you're bored.

http://www.cuntscorner.com/

Monday 14 May 2007

This time last year... 15/05/2006 seems a distant memory

This time last year I was saying my goodbyes, packing my things and excited about my "new life" in Korea. I can't believe how fast the last 12 months have gone by..

I left the UK on a grim Monday in May and the same Monday this year its actually quite pleasant out. That pretty much fits my moods for both really; the UK at the moment does seem quite nice, a few clouds in the sky and its a bit cold, but all in all its looking ok. Last year I really was full of clouds and the UK offered me nothing. Strange how a year and the weather can make you reflect on things.

The horizon for the future feels brighter than it did last year, and although I'm probably still not happy about being in the UK (because of the system more than the place itself) I'm a little happier with myself. This blog helps me get some things off my chest at least...

Maybe when the Tories get in they can start to repair some of the damage Tony Blair and his bunch of fuck puppets have done, but I doubt it. This country needs a lot but a housing market collapse would be a start. Maybe then we can start supporting those in society that actually pay their taxes, don't fiddle the system and just drain our resources with no intentions of bettering themselves... anyway, before I start, I'm happier than I was this time last year..

Oh, and fuck L Ron Hubbard and Scientology... they can eat shit and die and I will post on this later...

Friday 11 May 2007

Natasha Bedingfield, you fucking horse faced bitch..

Nothing makes my piss boil more than people wanking off over how cute/great/amazing babies are. Get over it, children aren't special.. Bill Hicks tried to tell the world that and he saw his numbers dwindle, but I'm afraid its true..

Anyway, I was recently subjected to one of the worst things my eyes and ears have ever been subjected to, so bad i wanted to get a soldering iron and burn out my eyeballs, then squirt superglue in my earholes so I would never have to go through it again.

I once thought and hoped that karma had caught up with the Bedingfield household for crimes against humanity by subjected the world to its torturous overtones when Daniel Bedingfield was involved in a quite serious car accident, but unfortunately for Mother Earth, he managed to recover. His torment thereafter has been limited, but his accident paved the way for the torture that is his horse faced sister, Natasha. Knowing how much I fucking hate horses, she was someone I was always destined to hate, and far from a refreshing change to the music industry.

Amy had seen her new video and had to subject me to it, for the kicks of my facial expressions undoubtedly, but I almost couldn't believe it. The gates of Hell had opened and the visual feast of Satans bowels were pouring out with sounds to boot.

Seriously.. the song is called something like "I want to have your babies" and the premise is old Horseface goes around dating men, but secretly she just wants a kid. She probably found the lyrics written on the back of a rizla on the bus on her way to cash her giro, they certainly hit home to what most 15 year old chavettes are thinking. She goes with numerous guys all run like men, but eventually finds some metaphorical eunuch who does want a baby with her. The end involves probably one of the worst things I've ever heard, with her rap talking and describing the babies shes seeing in her head. How that got into the album track Ill never know, maybe it was added just for the video in the name of "artist licensing", who knows/cares.. it makes me wish I had the Ebola virus.

I wish I had an advanced TiVo for this shit, something that could detect the first few frames of shitty music videos and put them on block. It wouldn't even be hard to do. My version would say something like:


The following "music" video has been blocked:

Natasha Beddingfield - I want to have your babies

Under the Crimes Against Music Act 2007. If you do want to listen to this atrocity, enter "666" on your remote now.

Super Mega TiVo - making the World better by blocking the things that suck, one turd at a time.

So if you're feeling like puking so hard your intestines feel like theyre on the way out then jump across to YouTube and watch the video... it might be good for a couple of days of work with a bad back if you retch hard enough (Im sure you will)..

Email Joke of the Week

A man came home from work, sat down in his favourite chair, turned on the TV, and said to his wife, "Quick, bring me a beer before it starts."

She looked a little puzzled, but brought him a beer. When he finished it, he said, "Quick, bring me another beer. It's going to start."

This time she looked a little angry, but brought him a beer. When it was gone, he said, "Quick, another beer before it starts."

"That's it!" She blows her top, "You bastard! You waltz in here, flop your fat arse down, don't even say hello to me and then expect me to runaround like your slave. Don't you realize that I cook and clean and wash and iron all day long?"

The husband sighed. "Damn, it's started."


I get lots of crap emails... this has been "the best" this week... rather than pollute your email account, ill just pollute my blog...

My Site Stats... popular? Not so much...

A Blog by Dave - I get bored and angry (s36delmorpha)

-- Site Summary ---
Visits Total .......................... 236
Average per Day ................. 13
Average Visit Length .......... 2:36
This Week ....................... 89
Page Views Total .......................... 381
Average per Day ................. 20
Average per Visit .............. 1.6
This Week ...................... 139

I've been tracking the stats of my blog recently, out of interest/hope of becoming more popular as Yahoo had a visitors count but Blogger doesn't, but my SiteMeter addon is great. It lets me know how random people landed on my blog and who visits regularly by location.

My blog is getting more popular thanks to Googles indexing, but I wouldn't say I currently have a massive audience. What has been interesting is seeing new peoples first visit, then to find they are returning, and thats great news!

Some other interesting things are the searches I'm found through. A lot of people steal the Pokemon picture in my 10 games article. It would seem quite a few people are interested in Sonic the Hedgehog having sex with Tails. it would also appear that there is actually an event called "Gizzfest" and my blog is number one for that search term. Happy Days!

In any case, for those of you who read my blog regularly cheers, you keep reading and Ill keep writing. For those of you new to my blog and find yourself returning, thank you too. I have quite a few new things to get off my chest this month, which will start over the weekend with an article I will be calling "I hate Natasha Beddingfield"...

Peace out!

Thursday 10 May 2007

This is Living featuring beardy twat...

I don't know this guy, I've never met this guy in my life but he is a twat. Look at him, with his beard and his "This is Living" Sony fanboy T-Shirt. Twat.

I'm told he is 22.. so why does he have a beard?

He is a bell ringer. He goes pot holing. He probably is a member of a Christian Youth Association and runs some sort of swimming club for young boys with innocent intentions under the name of Christianity. Probably..

Well, anyway, couple the beard and the Sony fanboyism, I had to blog this twat. Twat.

Oh, and look... I'm blogging at work... lol... good start Dave, good start..

All Work and No Blog makes Dave a dull Boy..

Well, I've started my new job and I'm doubting I'm going to be as flexible to do my blog as I was in previous positions by hey hoe, these things happen! This isn't to say that its the end of my blogging, far from it, it just means I will be restricted to blogging in the evenings and the weekends that I'm not working.

Thus far the new job is going pretty well, it's most definitely a job in IT and a "job" job... unlike some of my previous positions that I had a bit more freedom as it were. Read into that what you will but the jobs great, the moneys great, and the prospects are great so I'm happy. Who knows, this may be a job I can last longer than 12 months in...

Thats not to say I've never had a long term job, I mean I was at Janda for more than 4 years *shudders* but more recently I've had more in and outs that I'd care to remember when it comes to jobs. If you add up the total employment length per employer its actually not so bad, but on paper my CV is a little fragmented. I'm just hoping with the promises of MS certification and the quality of the companies we do business for, and the enjoyment of the job, this will be something I will be doing in 12 months time.

Anyway, I just thought I'd keep people updated, and my blog on the "updated often" trawl of Google. There are a few things I havent had chance to comment on yet (Nintendo, you're lucky...) but I will do once I get settled.

Sunday 6 May 2007

Founder of Pandora drops in and says hi! Hi Tim!! :)

To my shock/disbelief, the founder of Pandora has left a comment about my post of the Death of Pandora. For those too lazy to click the comments section, here it is:

Thanks for posting on this, Dave. I think it's important for folks to understand that far from 'jumping in to bed' with anyone, we've made this decision in order not to. In the UK we're working on a statutory agreement that will allow us to remain as neutral as we have always been. Pandora never has, and NEVER will, play a song because we've been paid to do it. NEVER.

So very sorry about this. Any webcaster around the world, no matter where they stream 'from', requires direct licenses for EVERY rightsholder, for EVERY song, for EVERY country in which it is streamed. That's the climate in which the kind of fear you have is more likely to come true. Direct deals can have all sorts of strings attached.

We'll keep working as hard as we can to find a solution.

Tim (Founder)

What a hero! How many web founders are dedicated enough to clear up a few things about their websites new decisions, no matter how small the reader base (although Google seems to be picking me up a bit better and my hits are going up daily, those of you who read my blog regularly will always be the hardcore!) and actively seek out anyone commenting on it!

In response to his comments I say this.. great to hear that your not allowing yourselves to get too shafted by the RIAA and anyone associated with their digital "War of Terror" and good luck trying to get a solution suitable for everyone.

Its also good to hear from the horses mouth that you don't contaminate the mix with financial gains in mind. To be honest, I'm sure it would be very tempting with the more commercial artists to set up a reciprocal pay per play deal (like broadcasting radio stations) but thankfully my taste in music is far from commercial and thats one of the things I love about your site (that I don't have to listen to shite).

Hopefully you will do whats right for everyone, not just for the US. In a week where we've seen you guys and Microsoft shutting your digital doors to to world in one form or another, your reassurance goes a little way to restoring my faith that there is going to continue to be a world outside the US.

You have the formula so, so right.. it turns out that Last.FM was just a cheap fling, so it would be a shame to lose you. Although my Biffy Clyro radio station was far better with Last.FM (only because Biffy are a small band from Scotland and they're similar artists can only be found on smaller independent labels), as a whole it just isn't the same. There is no way to tell Last.FM of other bands you want it to mix in, you can't go back to artists you've listened to easily, whether that be to say you loved/hated it or to perhaps buy it, and the interface just isn't friendly at all.

On a personal note to Tim, welcome to my blog and hope you come back soon! If you keep up the good work, i'll keep recommending you to my friends and associates. Oh, and if you ever need an angry Software Engineer willing to travel the globe, with an opinion on everything whose a big fan of music, digital rights and wrongs, and sticking it to the RIAA just give me a call... I need an excuse to get out the UK and would love to come work for you! ;)

Friday 4 May 2007

Site of the Week - Life after Pandora.com : Last.FM

I am a whore. Only hours after Pandora left me I'm already "in bed" with her hotter British second cousin Last.FM and from what I can tell she does all the things Pandora didn't let you do.. she even lets you share her goodies with your friends!

With a sexier, more streamlined interface, and thus far less Americanised music choices, Last.FM is filling the stop gap whilst Pandora gets its fuck on with the RIAA and she comes back a beaten and abused version of herself.

I didn't want my relationship with Pandora to end, but somehow it has.. her abusive Uncle has come home stomping his feet at her being too cheap, too fancy free with her content and she needs to "Shape Up or he will kill her". I'm not into the needy type, and Pandora will come crawling back and be needier than ever, so our relationship is most definitely over.

So Last.FM gets my vote as Site of the Week... if only because she was there for me the day I broke up with Pandora..

Thursday 3 May 2007

A Net full of Walls - RIP Pandora, gone but not forgotten..

Pandora got me back into listening to new music in a big way and today is a very, very sad day for me. Not in the sense that I personally won't be able to use Pandora (after all I am a nerd and know what a proxy server is) but in the sense that the internet has lost something very special... like when Napster got shut down, the first really mainstream file transferring software, and the bovine masses were stumped as to where to find their illegally downloaded music from.

Today, Pandora.com officially closed its servers to IP addresses outside of the US. Previously a simple Google for "zip code" would bypass the US check but now, due to increasing pressure from the RIAA and increases in running costs associated with that pressure, they have implemented IP filtering to direct regionalised content. This means more revenue for the RIAA and publishers (like the artists benefit one bit...), more work for Pandora for less money and a bit "Fuck You" to anyone outside the US until they get the advertising/content manipulation right for your country.

This is also the first time I've thought about how easy the Pandora algorithm would be to seriously manipulate by the RIAA, or a significant sponsor now that they have buckled into the pressure and lubed themselves up. Pandora already do it somewhat by trying to integrate bands that are currently touring into your music; if you click "Now Touring" and buy a concert ticket, you help support Pandora and the system works. Imagine what we are install for when EMI or one of the big labels put enough pressure on.

What you'll end up with is deals where if you say your favourite band is signed to Sonys Columbia record label, Pandora will be contracted to filter in another 3 songs signed to Columbia in the next hour or so. Thus increasing the chance you'll buy a CD off their label, thus making them more money. Add that to the increased fees associated with an Internet radio station and you can see the only winner here is the "Industry" i.e. the Man, not the artists, and certainly not the end users.

I've found some great new bands listening to Pandora, bands whose CDs I'd actually buy too. I heard an artist I actually thought was Ben, thumbs upped the great, thumbs down the shite and been actively involved in using it. Admittedly I'm probably the kind of user they don't want using their service (as my Firefox browser has a lot of Ad blocking software) but the service was great, and one that I've spread to friends and family. Funny how in an age of global connectivity, word of mouth is still one of the best advertising methods.

Unlike Pandora, I had moved on from using Napster when it got shut down, and was already well into the realms of Kazaa and eDonkey as my file sharing application of choice. Today is a very sad day for the internet (in what has been a sad week for digital rights and wrongs - Google "HD DVD encryption key" fiasco if you don't already know) as Pandora really doesn't have anything like it, let alone better and easier to use.

I genuinely wish in all the hours of listening, I had set up one of the programs to rip out the MP3s it plays and stored them myself, but even with that the mixing wouldn't be the same...Winamp still has a laughable random() function and iTunes is horrid, horrid bloatware!


Pandora, you were my first internet radio love... I am heart broken that you've jumped into bed with someone else, and of all people, with my arch enemy, the RIAA and its whole board of members, you filthy slut! I'm going to try and climb your internet (drain) pipes and trick you into taking me back, but your disloyalty has jaded our relationship and shown me your true colours. It looks like I'm back to shuffling it myself, but thank you for being my first... x

Wednesday 2 May 2007

City Link...more like fucking Shitty Stink...

What a bunch of friggin' retards City Link are... I mean how hard is it to deliver a parcel these days with the likes of Satellite Navigation, Google Earth and every other advantage we have to see the exact locations of places on the planet.

3 attempts at delivering to a place where the post code has only one possible destination and they managed not to be able to find it. My parcel even had my office direct line AND my mobile phone number on and the driver was unable to think to call if he was struggling.

My automatic transmission kit for the FTO was supposed to arrive with me on Thursday but by 5pm I was getting a little worried. I gave Camskill an email and they responded right away with a tracking code. Apparently the driver had attempted delivery at 3pm and we had been carded to let us know they had done so. Had they fuck... our site has one entrance and in an open plan car park we have 2 buildings that are open throughout the day. Nothing whatsoever...

Friday am I gave City Link a call to find out where the fuck things were.. the woman assured me that the driver had our location, knew where he was going and she had logged the name of our company to relay this to the driver to ensure he knew where to go this time. By 3pm we had no sign of any Yellow and Green vans.

So I called again... yet again the woman told me that the driver was still out for delivery and they knew where they were going. She reread my address and details and everything sounded ok. By 5pm I was pissed, still nothing. At 5:10pm their online tracking system had updated to let me know they had failed delivery again, this time at 2:37pm and once again we had been carded. Once again we hadn't.

I was steaming and immediately called them to give them a piece of my mind; that they were an inept bunch of monkeys with the same amount of common sense as a retarded squirrel. The woman was dumbfounded so she passed me across to some Northern driver who told me "ee, tut drivers durt av sat navs" and after decifering that, I told them to hold on to it and I would have to try and collect it on Saturday which was a 40 mile round trip to boot.

We landed at 11ish on Saturday at the Preston depo and to rub salt into the wound the young ginger prick behind the counter had put it out for delivery himself, even though I explicitly told them not to. I looked at him and just shook my head, I mean what else can you do when you're dealing with a company who can't do their job AND can't follow instructions. He got on the phone and rang the driver, who would be back at the depo shortly so I was asked to wait 20 minutes in my car until then. So I did to let the rage calm down.

I gave them half an hour and went back in and ginger bollocks had my parcel waiting for me fortunately for him. The box was pretty battered and I had to laugh when I saw a big sticker on it saying "Hold in cage - Customer to collect Saturday AM" - being able to read can be added to the list of things City Link are incapable of. Fortunately for me everything was ok and inside the box, largely thanks to the excellent wrapping by Camskill.

And thats a wrap... the next time you order something to be delivered, try and avoid City Link... they're a pride of dongs*!

* I don't know the collective noun for a group of penii but I'm sure knowing men, it would be a pride...

Monday 30 April 2007

I hate the Beautiful South

I'm riding the porcelain pony at work and its one of the few times I'm subjected to the radio in my life. I'm not the biggest fan of the radio, no matter what the station, but amongst the many stations guilty of crimes against humanity, Century FM has to be the biggest.

Seriously, they run whats called a "No Repeat workday" (or at least the used to), but the fuckers fail to mention the same playlist is used every day without fail. It's like being at a family gathering and they have one of those DJs that plays the typical 70s disco fever tracks, and thinks hes really extreme by doing the Bon Jovi, Brian Adams and Reef rock mix without realising how cliche he, or his choice in music is. I'm sure these DJs are brought up directly from the pits of Hell..

Well, anyway, I'm enjoying my game of Crazy Bubbles and what should come on the radio; the Beautiful South. Probably one of the worlds most middle of the road bands ever. I fucking hate them!

I mean who actually goes out and buys this shit. I tell you who; the kind of fucks that think that "don't Marry Her, fuck me" is controversial thats who. The kind of people that buy a Renault Espace, go on holiday with their three kids and the dog to France and both work in Accounts. The fuckers that in school thought that having a cider lolly was an excuse to pretend you were drunk and act like a cock, even though everyone thought they were a cock to begin with. People that were born from the turds of middle Britain and blocked Lytham Quays, thats who





Meet Alison Jack, the chairman of Defend Lytham. She looks like someone guilty of listening to the Beautiful South doesn't she. I bet she drives a Zara Picasso too and holidays in the south of France, but tells people she started going there before it was trendy. I am also to believe she is the wife of Michael Jack, local MP and all round Tory boy. He too is a bum winnet.. but thats another story.






Anyway, I digress... so The Beautiful South. Wikipedia cites them as being full of "Kitchen Sink Drama" and thats probably partially the reason I hate them so much. Every song is like an episode of Coronation Street, and as such, I want the band to die in a horrible tragedy. The world really doesn't need more Coronation Street..

The world also really doesn't need any more bands that are perched on that middle of the road peg, sitting on the sidelines ready to jump on the trendy bandwagon to make a quick buck. Now really, the Beautiful South aren't really guilty of this (and fortunately their split earlier this year means they won't be polluting our air waves with any new material.. they're old turds are destined to float around for years to come though), unlike many pop/rock bands *cough* U2 *cough* but they are painfully middle of the road.

U2... now thats a band I truly hate... *save that rant for another day*...

The BBC reported their split as the end of 19 wonderful years in music.. more like 13 shitty albums not worth the plastic they've been made out of. So the Beautiful South can go fuck themselves for ruining my toilet time.. and for giving dickholes like Alison Jack the "gritty" music they can concoct their plans for ruining one of the best things that could've happened to Lytham ever.

Dissecting the 13 points I wanted to do when I got back to the UK from 6 months ago...

I've been going through my blog, looking at the statistics to who visits a lot, and what traffic I draw back with my varying rants and spotted someone in Japan had been referred from Google with the search "Where is Guri Wonderland?" (The answer is Hell). I noticed my 13 points of things to do when I got back to the UK and it made me laugh as the reality is far from the ideal.

1. Pint in the Links... on Jonny! A game of darts and a few quid in the bandit... its stupid but thats home... slagging off the gay lord quiz master, whether thats the Racoon or that other Knucklebeard and then not really being all that bothered about it.

Lol... I never did get a pint out of Jonnys winnings, although he has bought me a beer. I've bought some darts and have started to improve, but since the only reason to go to the Sunday night quiz is over (Open the Box was won), no one goes in any more. I also forgot how bad the Sunday quiz is... man that quiz guy is a loser...


2. Boys nights...OiOi with eBoy and the lads.


I think in the 6 months I've been back I've had about 3 boys nights out at most. This isn't to say that I haven't been out on the lash after Snooker several times, just boys nights out have been a bit thin on the ground.


3. Talking Science with Phil

Haha... yeah, top job!


4. Snooker night!

Enjoyed the Snooker season, we finished third and got a trophy! Check the league table here!


5. Steak night at Spoons.

They've put the price up by 50p but its actually better than is used to be.. when they have my Ribeye steak in...

6. Mixed Grill and a pint of Bods at the Fairhaven.

My appetite has changed a little since coming home but I can still manage a mixed grill from the Fairhaven. Unfortunately they've put the price of drinks up beyond logic (a coke is something like £1.60 for a half pint!) so we don't like to go in as often. Food is still the best for portion size and quality in the area though.

7. Driving a car... any car!

I have just this month got enough money together to put my car back on the road. Its cost me a ridiculous amount!


8. Poker Tuesdays/Thursdays

I haven't been to play live poker since getting home, how sad!

9. Knowing my games consoles are all there...

Dreamcast is still at Daxs but I have the rest of them set up just about but our current living arrangement doesn't give me the best opportunity to play them all party style.

10. A TV thats less than 10 years old.... probably again, at Jonnys! Image

I bought a 32" LCD 2 months ago because the room we are living in was driving us insane and the only escapism was on a crappy 21" TV. It was cheap from DABs (£340 cheap) so I felt it was about time I invested in some new technology.

11. Sitting in the sand dunes.

Not sat in the sand dunes yet, Ive been for a walk on the beach, and took the camera down to try some HDR photography of the sea but thats about it.

12. Having more than one room in my house.

Haha.... we're actually living in a smaller space than I had in Korea and have been for the last 6 months! I've just got a new job so we're now in a position to move out but its been hell!


13. Tescos for bits and bobs at 1am when Im in one of those moods!

This is probably the best thing about living in the UK, but probably one of the worst things for the planet and society. Tesco are taking over and destroying small businesses the country over. Everyone is a slave to Tesco but when they have everything under one roof its great.

... too many little things to count really... moneys a nice thing to have, and tax is a nice thing to avoid, but without the small things it can be a little empty... until you have enough of it not to be bothered about the little things and can just do what you want all day!

What a crock of shit! I don't know what I was hopped up on when I wrote this but I take it back. Tax is a nice thing to avoid... yes, yes it really is... things have got worse in the UK and taxation is still on the rise. The government looks for more and more ingenious ways to make sure all of our wages eventually ends up back with them and we continue to stay numb because as a nation we tend to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't really affect us. House prices continue to rise, but hopefully an interest rate increase will overstretch a few people and I will be able to get a cheap house sometime in the near future.

Money is never empty... poor people just like to think it is because they don't have it and want to justify their own existence by saying things like "you can't buy happiness" etc etc. Its one of the biggest lies thats sold to society. Hollywood sells it, the music industry sells it and most people buy into it.

The truth is that of course you can buy happiness and everyone does buy happiness. You buy it in the shape of the things around you, your house, your car, nights out, nights in, the Sky subscription (keeping you fat and stupid on that big comfy couch of yours, snacking away like the bovine mind cattle you are), the kids, the dog, the designer clothes, the holiday to Tenerife, the weekend break to the Lake District. The secret is to keep you thinking that being really wealthy isn't something you would like, to keep buying things to make you happy and to keep the commercial world ticking over.

I don't know why I complain.. I, like everyone else, am searching for the comfortable place in society where I'm happy to take it in the ass. No matter what you do, where you live, what your walk of life is, someone or something will want to F you in the A. Whether that be the government, a gang leader, a pimp, your boss, your employees, or simply a totalitarian regime set on changing your country for the better of its own, someone is above you and they have that "Rodney" sized strap on ready to give you the ass pounding of your life. It's just a matter of how loose you are at the end of the day....

Friday 27 April 2007

Grow a set..

Internet site of the week: NoMarriage.com

I found an interesting article on Digg on why men dont want to get married and in the large part I have to agree with it. I'm afraid to say that I see it in some of the people around me and it is quite true and hurtful to think that some women out there see men as a pay cheque, or have an ulterior motive towards marriage and kids. Don't get me wrong, men are quite shallow in some of their needs on this site, but some of the stories I can totally see happening. Some of these guys also need to grow a set but thats another story...

Two of my favourite statements on this site are:

Women are, for the most part, not well suited to accept reality or to think logically. they will approach a situation with their mind already made up, then they will twist and manipulate the information to validate what they're already thinking.

and

My granddad told me an insightful story before my wedding. He said for the first year of marriage to put a penny in a jar every time I had sex with my wife. Starting in year two, take out two pennies every time we had sex. He said there'd be money in the jar when I died. I think he's going to be right.


There are some quite bitter personal statements on this site, some jaded opinions of women and I can't help feel like the author got royally ass fucked by his wife in their divorce but all in all its a funny and interesting read.

If you are considering marriage I recommend checking out Whom Not To Marry and seriously reassessing the situation as a man, not a pussy whipped shadow of your former self. Making the wrong decision will see you in a loveless relationship, be destined for divorce and you living off 20% of your wages in a grungy little flat whilst she enjoys your kids, your house and gets everything shes been setting up from day one.

Thursday 26 April 2007

Am I in danger of becoming a girl...?! Beware of Insanely Cute Chihuahuas!!

If its news to you that we are looking for a Chihuahua then I have just told you. Once Amy and I get settled at wherever it may be we move to we are going to be looking to get ourselves a little dog called Sega.

Now searching for Sega thus far is fruitless as we can't actually a) afford him/her b) have him/her living with us in our one room at my dads and c) causing heart ache but none the less we have been. I think I am however, becoming a bit of a girl...

You must know that annoying noise girls make when they see something cute? I have been guilty of making that noise on several occasions recently. It is hard to contain that noise when you see some of the insanely cute dogs on the ePupz website we have been searching on and I have included some pictures of the most cute dogs we have seen so far.

Really though I dont care... and if you didn't make that noise when you saw the pictures I've added to this post, then you're dead inside!


How is this NOT cute?!

Wednesday 25 April 2007

GamePro do a list of 52 of the most Important games ever... manages to ignore Sega and misses the mark by miles..

Starting here and baring in mind this is supposed to be a list of the most important games of all time this list manages to miss the mark by miles. Holy fuck someone hates Sega/loves Sony over at GamePro (maybe they gave them a batch of the PS3s they have lying around doing nothing...) so rather than creating my own list, I'm going to cover just 10 games they missed due to n00bism / stupidity / being 12 years old.



1. Sonic the Hedgehog - Sega Genesis/Master System/Game Gear
Surely this was one of the first battles of a console and caused more playground fights than any other pair in gaming history? Everyone had a favorite, whether it was the furry little Blue Hedgehog, or a fat Italian Plumber but this game started the term "console war" pitting it side by side with Nintendos mascot. If that alone doesn't justify its place on the list I don't know what the fuck will...




2. Sensible World of Soccer - Amiga/ PC / Atari ST(?)
Not a single football game on that list (damn Americans) but this is the first truly classic football game before licensing deals/EA dominance took over. Diehard fans are still creating updates for this game, it was just that good. Management decisions, glorious gameplay and difficulty, in its time this game had it all (and all the player names to boot)! This game is still one of the only great Player Manager football games available to date, 15 years later!



3. Monkey Island - - Amiga/ PC / Atari ST
LeChuck and Guybrush, Guybrush and Le Chuck... what a pair they are! Not the first point and click adventure, but it certainly led the way for Lucas Arts in terms of defining a pretty high standard of comedic script writing and a seemingly limitless number of possibilities for item combinations and actions. With 3 sequels, and numerous other classic Lucas Arts titles that follows (Day of the Tentacle and the brilliant Sam and Max are amongst my own personal favorites) this was definitely an important title for the adventure game genre.


4. Shenmue - Sega Dreamcast
Not only did this game show that a massive budget doesn't guarentee you success, nor does years of planning and script writing, it also showed what it technically possible with the Dreamcast, and within the world of video games. Hoping that the days of not being able to interact with all the objects in a game, Shenmue allowed us to play, fiddle and explore every item of the game, including drawers, cupboards and tables in random peoples houses.

I felt the western release of Shenmue was massively let down by poor (nay, terrible) voice acting which was a turn off for a lot of my friends at the time. If you could look past that, as hard as it was, what you found was a pretty engrossing adventure and quite deserved of a place in the most important video games of all time.


5. Crash Bandicoot - PSX
Crash became the "Mario" of Sonys console and his release into the Playstation catalog was much needed at the time. Crash Bandicoot became one of the first console shifters for the younger PSX audience and is responsible for many a Playstation in the kids bedroom. Whilst nowhere near as good or technically brilliant as Mario 64 on the N64, the Crash introduction as a brand name allowed for many more titles under its licence and yearly updates and versions. They even released a crappy Mario Kart clone or two, keeping all the Nintendo like fun accessible for those with the Sony console, and in terms of the market, I feel that deserves a place on the list.



6. Tomb Raider - PSX
This game became the first game to prove that sex symbols work to sell video games to teenage boys. Lara Croft instantly became the pinup of the day, with rumors circulating of "nude cheats" got the blood pumping to a certain body part that the industry hadn't seen much of before in any other form than cheap sex games. Since Lara there has been a strew of other game hotties, but lest we forget where Sex Symbols in games started to hit the mainstream.



7. Resident Evil - PSX / Sega Saturn
Fuck Resident Evil 4, this is the important Resident Evil. How dare they say that RE4 is more important than the founder of the Survival Horror genre! Where the likes of Alone in the Dark had failed, Resident Evil blasted its way onto the scene with a mixture of fear, tension and great puzzle solving like we had never seen before. RE led the way for Silent Hill, Illbleed, Dead Rising and every other survival horror title ever, showing us what in game tension should be all about.





8. Pokemon - Nintendo Gameboy

Probably the strangest omission I found seen as this is still going and has done more the burn the Nintendo brand into the mind of a generation than any other game, arguably more than even Mario. Pokemon has certainly help keep Nintendo afloat during the hard times of its previous games consoles.

You might not instantly know Pokemon is a Nintendo trademark, but I'm damned if you don't know what Pokemon is. Pokemon and its continuing reign of terror showed the industry how to market to kids and to be able to expand out of solely video games.




9
. Double Dragon - Arcade
Ahh... the signs of a misspent youth in the arcade, but Double Dragon led the way for many of the great CPS2 games and arcade titles, including Final Fight, Knights of the Round, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and many other scrolling beat 'em ups. Whips, baseball bats and scary black giants that looked like Mr T.. this game rocked hard! Double Dragon started one of my favorite genres of games, and therefore deserves homage.


10. Katamari Damacy - PS2
Now there are many other titles I could list and justify, but I feel Katamari deserves a place because it proves a point that I have been trying to make for years, and is one of the only games I can recall that does it; it proves that crazy Japanese titles can and do work in the western hemisphere.

This game is truly brilliant, truly Japanese and without its successful launch in the west, it would be unlikely we would've seen the brilliant Loco Roco or a number of other games deemed to Japanese for our differing tastes.



Well, thats my choice of 10 games that should've made it to that list in the top 50. Granted it is somewhat an opinion outside of the top ten (Madden in second can eat my ass..) but really, not a single Sega title in there showed how much GamePro suck balls...

Tuesday 24 April 2007

My new Chav Exhaust...


If you don't know the story I had to replace the mid section of my FTO exhaust at the weekend as it failed its MOT on emissions and after being quoted around £300 for a replacement mid box I was "fortunate" enough to find a discounted GS Sports Exhaust for the FTO for £230 Saturday delivered in the reduced section on a website.

There were no actual pictures so I had to cross my fingers and hope for the best.. it came and its Chavtastic!

Its a 5" back pipe and although it sounds rather nice, its looks rather silly compared to my twin tailpipe of before. It also hangs too low because of the rubber holding mount not being strong enough to support its weight. Great sound, stupid boy racer look... shame!

Don’t argue with Christians, it’ll only piss you off...

Digging at work helps fill the day...that first 45 minutes before the coffee kicks in, the 15 minutes before lunch, the hour after lunch whilst things digest, the 15 minute coffee break at 4 and the last half an hour before I go home. Inevitably I read bits that stimulate thoughts on existence, what I'm doing with my life etc etc and found this picture of the typical Bible Bashers promotion to try and guilt trip you into attending church this Sunday.

Well in the comments I found this particular comment by a so called Trinity (cliche Matrix wannabes can post interesting comments at times apparently)

Don’t argue with christians guys it’ll only piss you off. How can you beat someone who’s wrong but “knows” they’re right. You’ll only get pissed off. At least you can say to took the high road.

It was right up my alley really and quite deep if you can ignore the poor punctuation, grammar and non capitalisation (I can hardly lecture about writing I know..).

I've been known to tickle the feathers of many a Christian in my time, and have a perverse fascination with it. I am quite well read on the religion as a whole, and this comment shares the general attitude I get when trying to voice my opinion. If you're going to have to listen to their bullshit its always handy to have a counter argument to the shit they'll try and coax you in with. In the words of Rage Against The Machine, "Know Your Enemy" is the only defense you have.

It always amazes me how someone with such strong beliefs is the least likely to listen to your own opinions and beliefs. They're the first to reject anything other than their own doctrine as the truth when there is plenty of evidence to support other "theories".

Christians don't really have much to go off, and what they do have has been twisted, reworded, sections removed, edited to fit in with whatever agenda the Christian Missionaries and Crusaders had at the time. You have to laugh when the ideals of 2000 years ago can be hung upon word for word, yet evidence disproving their doctrine with modern science is dismissed as blasphemy, Satans work or just ignored completely.

To be honest I'm not out to kill Christianity specifically, its just closer to home for me and I have to deal with it every day. I'm sure if any religion was forced upon me I would "rebel" against it just the same. I just wish people wouldn't quote the Bible as if it was the only solution...

I mean I could never accept a religion that forced me to accept it as the only truth and denounce all other Gods and possibilities. Just over a hundred years ago scientists thought the atom was a "plum pudding" then they researched and human driven technology allowed us to find nano particles and all the other "fluff" in an atom that we could never have imagined existed... religions are no different, and I always like to keep my options open.

The question I always get asked is "how can you live a good moral life without religion" and people who ask this question get the same look like the next thing Im going to do is punch them in the face. What you're trying to say in that is that you think I'm that fucking stupid that without a book I can't tell the difference between right and wrong, or that you're that stupid... either way I'm antagonised into responding where normally I should just walk away.

If you're such a moron that you can't work out that killing, adultery, stealing, lying and greed are wrong then you need help and maybe you should be cleansed from the gene pool. The first 4 commandments are bullshit to begin with, then honouring my mother and father because God says so without them having to earn respect, lead their own good life is also bullshit (If my parents are Satan worshiping heathens is it still commanded that I honour them... I mean where do you draw the line on that one?). The last 5 "commandments" are just common sense/the law so outside of that you have a whole host of fun to be had if its only by those laws you live (no wonder Catholic Ministers think its ok to bum alter boys).

Rather than teaching religion in schools we should analyse all religions and take the lessons that are to be had from all religions and use them to better ourselves. Religion has a lot to offer the human race, and is also filled with a lot of bullshit, but we can only learn from it if we accept them for the stories and guilt trips they are; in 2007 we don't need the guilt part (commercialisation and global conglomerate has this covered), or the silly practices involved. Maybe if we took the best elements from all religions and created one Super Religion that aimed to teach rather than preach we would be able to evolve and grow, but whilst people are still killing themselves in the name of God, Allah or whatever the fuck you want to call your divine spirit, we will continue to expand but never develop.

Friday 20 April 2007

Honey BBQ Boneless Bites : Pain, Expensive and more Pain...

If you live in the shithole we call the UK you have probably seen the advertisement for KFCs new Honey BBQ chicken on TV. If you haven't, its advertised with delicious looking chicken pieces on a rack being drizzled in luscious BBQ sauce in slow motion; one of those adverts that if you're hungry sends you directly to the fridge.

So I thought I would give it a whirl this week, being Filthy Friday and all, and I have to say I was left disappointed and in pain....

The fat guy behind the KFC counter (who looked a lot like Michael Moore actually) grabbed a few scraps of chicken then took them over to a vat of disgusting looking hot sauce and I knew I was set for disappointment from the get go. The box reminded me of the con of popcorn chicken, again scraps of chicken thrown in the smallest container they could find.

I got back to the office and the first thing I got stuck into was the BBQ bites. As I opened the box I got a distinct acidic waft that burnt my nostrils a little (they smelt good in the bag driving back though) and was met with the above and below images.

The first image I've shrunk but the second is full high res taken with our Canon EOS 350d digital SLR and I recommend checking out the detailing on that chicken because it can only be described as fucking disgusting! It looked like a cross between something the cat dragged in and something it later shat back out...

But fast food is often like that, so I thought I better give it the taste test to confirm my already suspicious mind. One bite and my teeth moved into a firework display of pain. My mouth exploded with the honey entering every little flaw in my "british smile" and not having the best teeth at the minute they were now feeling the wrath of not having a dentist visit in 18 months (bad I know but who has the money when you can't get an NHS dentist..).

I preservered through the pain and tastewise they were very sharp and acidic. If youre a big fan of McDonalds BBQ sauce over KFCs then you'll love these Im sure, but for me it burns my chest. So not only did I have to suffer on the processing, the digestion also came back to haunt me. The sauce is so powerful it completely masks the coating which would be the only redeeming factor KFC has to offer given theyre supposed to be chicken experts and all.

At £2.49 (over $5 at the current exchange rate..) for 5 little blobs of chicken this will certainly be the last time I get them. If you want to recreate them without having to support KFC in the process just buy a bag of shit chicken nuggets from tesco for 52p or whatever the value brand nuggets cost (*shudders* I don't actually want to know what is in 50p for 40 chicken nuggets..) and steal a few free pots of BBQ sauce from McShits... trust me, it'll be exactly the same.....

Score: 1 and a half BBQ Boneless Pieces out of 5