Ricky Gervais, part two

I blogged a while back about Ricky Gervais here, where I criticised him for taking the piss out of fat people. I've seen him do it during his stand-up routine, while on Letterman, and also on his blog. Basically, everywhere he can.

Anyhow, I've just gotten done watching his latest stand-up routine, Science, where, once again, he's having a go. Surprise surprise.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear at this point that I like Ricky Gervais. Really, I do. I quite like his style of humour, the way he tries to follow up statements with humorous bits of clarification that just seem to get him deeper in the shit. He doesn't take himself too seriously, and he's not worried about being politically correct, which is a big plus in my book.

That said, I wouldn't quite say he's setting the bar as far as comedy goes; if anything, I'd consider work like The Office and Extras more dramas than comedy shows. Still, I did laugh out loud a couple of times while watching his Science routine, and that's high praise.

He does continue to go on about fat people though. Says he's trying to help. Huh? When you're up on stage mate, making a joke about buckets or some such shit, you're not out to help anyone, you're having a laugh at their expense. Really, who are you trying to kid? You don't give a fuck about them, they're just filler because you don't really have enough material to fill the show. How else can you explain why he's doing it all... the... fucking... time?

Seriously, have you ever seen him have a go at smokers, or drug addicts? Or the smelly cunts out there who think nothing of showering and spraying a bit of deodorant on themselves before leaving the house every day?

No, never.

I get it mate, we live in an image-fueled world. What you look like is much more important than how you behave. Morals? Fuck em, just eat salad and go for a jog. That'll keep Ricky Gervais off your back, like as if he had any business being on your back in the first place.

Fuck you, Bethesda! Fuck you very much!

Ok, I have no interest in the Fallout: New Vegas game that's just been released, but this is fucking horseshit:

On the top, is the game listed in Steam for US residents, and the bottom, in Steam for Australian residents. Both are in $US currency.

I've blogged about this before, here, and here, but I consider this a particularly messed up example by virtue of it being a new release that's almost double the price.

If I were even nearly half-interested in this game, I'd torrent the fucking thing in a heartbeat. Fuck em. You're not doing the right thing by me, but you want me to do the right thing by you? Are you having a laugh?

It's not just PC gamers getting the shaft. EB Games list the 360/ps3 versions on sale for $59.99US for US residents, whereas EB Australia actually has it listed for a staggering $108.00AU. Do they not realise our dollar is currently buying $0.99US right now? Or do they seriously expect us to believe shipping costs bump up the price by about $40 per box?

Either way, Bethesda are definitely not getting any of my money this holiday season.

Onkyo TX-NR1007

The Onkyo TX-NR1007 is a 9.2 channel A/V Receiver, and by this time next week, it will be the receiver powering the venturai.com home theatre.

Out with the old Pioneer 1019, and in with the new Onkyo.

When it comes, I'll up new pics, and will advance the home theatre another iteration. We'll be at v1.3, woohoo!

Playstation Move

I've had Playstation Move for about 24 hours now. I bought the starter pack, an additional controller, Sports Champions, Start the Party and a charging station.

We spent the first evening with Start the Party, and this second evening I've just unlocked the bronze trophies in table tennis and gladiator duel. I've also played completely through the demo from The Shoot that came on the starter disk that's with the starter pack.

Impressions?

It's a bit of a double-edged sword. I'm not having the time of my life, but I think the combination of the camera and the controller makes for a much, much bigger step forward than the Wii remote was. Maybe it's because the camera has the ability to track the controller in 3D space far better than what's possible with the Wii's sensor bar, I don't know.

Shoot the Party is a game where you have to perform party tasks on camera. They use the position of the Move camera to attach a device to your hand, like a hammer or a tennis racquet. The game then has you perform things like swatting flies out of the air or popping balloons. It's gimmicky, but excellent, if just because for the first time in the game you're actually doing it yourself, rather than just controlling some avatar. It's not the best game you'll have played this year, but the potential is there to do some crazy fun stuff with the technology.

Sports Champions is Sega's take on Wii Sports. The table tennis experience is at least on par with that in Resort, which I consider a huge compliment considering the excellent job that Nintendo did. There are times when it doesn't quite do what I want, but that's an issue I've experienced with both games. The gladiator game is reasonably well done, especially when you're using two controllers, one for your shield and the other your sword.

I quite enjoyed The Shoot too. I'm definitely going to have to get a gun attachment for this controller. After a quick calibration, I found the aiming to be much more accurate than I was ever able to get shooting on the Wii. This had me enjoying the game a whole lot more. Assuming it also retails at $49AU, which is under half the price that normal new release games launch at down here, this is one game I'll have no hesitation in grabbing when it lands next month.

Much like with Wii Sports, then, I found the Move's launch titles to be excellent hardware demonstrations. There's not a lot of depth in anything, but the technology behind it all has some serious potential.

Coupled with Microsoft's upcoming Kinect, I really like how each system is now going to have its own motion-capture technology. With any luck it will force the big companies, like Activison, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, to have to think outside of the box (for once). No longer will they just be able to make the same old shooter and port it across, having it work pretty much exactly the same way but on slightly different gamepads.

Outside of the Rock Band franchise, which I will continue to support, and of course, my recent return into World of Warcraft, I'm officially done with normal games. I'm not shooting using some fiddly thumbstick thing on a gamepad when I can just point the Move controller at my target, no way! :D

World of Warcraft & more

Yes, you can assume that I'm still playing World of Warcraft :)

Less than four months I've been back into that game, and I'm now my guild's main tank. I've been main tank for both 10 and 25-man raids. I have a gear score of 5765 and I've got just over 41 thousand unbuffed hitpoints.

All things considered, for someone new to the endgame who also has a fulltime job commitment, I've come a fuck of a long way in a very short amount of time.

It was great at first, because it felt like there was always something to do, but now, like so many other people I know, it's become just about the raiding.

There's just nothing in it for me doing anything else anymore, because only getting together with a lot of other people and downing big bosses is going to net me gear that's better than what I already have.

In the meantime, you stare at the screen, sitting around in Dalaren, pretty much waiting for something to happen.

So I went and pre-ordered Playstation Move.

The Playstation Move is Sony's answer to the Nintendo Wii, and it comes out tomorrow. You hold a remote with a light bulb on the end, and a camera plugged into the ps3 picks thats up.

Initial reports are that it's actually very precise, and the wife and I were watching a Youtube video on the "Start the Party" game that had us laughing about halfway through.

I was particularly impressed with the sorcery game they demonstrated at E3 this year, but that's not due until next year. Bah.

If I don't write about Playstation Move ever again, you can assume it sucks more than Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

Assuming anything could suck more than that :)

Level 30 Storeman

Woot, I just hit level 30! To celebrate, I feel that now's a good time to reflect on the past.

When I first started working in this industry, I was a level 1 storeman. This is going back almost a decade now. I was so bad, infact, that when I began, I was walking around with these:

For the longest time, I wore those fucking boots. I didn't know how much they sucked, how stupid they made me for putting them on. That's the thing about items that take from your intellect, you end up too stupid to realise the effect they're having. I actually believed that hard work was the key to climbing the ladder, if you can believe that shit.

Over time, however, I have gained much experience. The loot drops have been crap, only ever scraps, but still, enough to have provided a roof over my head.

One gets smart over a long period of time though, and about two years ago, I completed a handful of quests in succession. The money rewards were shit, as has always been the case, but I did get lucky looting this:

Epic loot! I put it on, and the difference has been remarkable. My back hurts less at night from all the heavy lifting, and I'm finding I have more energy for my leisure activities.

I'm getting hardcore now though, as a recent quest turn-in awarded me the following piece:

Now that's what I'm talking about! Wearing this jacket is really helping me out here, especially in the zone that I'm questing in, if you get my drift.

It's at this point, that I'm looking towards the future. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get it, but I'm striving for the following piece:

I've seen some phat loot in my time, but finding that one in the workplace database had me positively drooling in anticipation of ever being able to own that beauty.

Just out of curiosity, however, but I thought I'd do a search on legendary pieces, and I have to admit, this is the one that really caught my eye:

When it comes to that thing, I'm like Wayne from Wayne's World; "one day, you will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine".

The connection

So yeah, I was thinking about World of Warcraft, about why it's so successful, and I was also thinking about workplace exploitation, and how much it sucks when you get screwed over IRL.

And then I caught on a connection between the two, which I'll admit, really made me laugh.

In my experience, commendable traits like integrity don't amount for much in the real world. They really don't. Work hard, and use your initiative as much as you like, it doesn't matter. Any extra money you may make who you work for, the boys at the top will just pocket for themselves. Quietly.

World of Warcraft, on the other hand, is a different story. Demonstrate an eagerness to learn, show up when you say you're going to show up, and put in the time and effort towards improving your character, and you'll go places. You'll see things you've never seen before, do things you've never done before, and be decked out in gear you'd never have dreamed of owning.

World of Warcraft, my friends, is a better judge of character than the real world. You read it here first.

World of Warcraft

Yes I know, it's been a while. You can blame my returning to World of Warcraft for that one.

For the longest time I'd had enough of MMO's. Like they said in an episode of Pure Pwnage, the only thing that matters is how long you play the game. Which is, of course, the point to it all.

More recently though, I've been able to hear and see my fiancee over the other side of the room enjoying it up. She got into a good guild, really enjoys her Shaman character, and even got into the raiding. Every Sunday evening they hit up 25-man ICC, and then she's part of a 10-man raid Monday or Wednesday or something. Then there's dailies, which of course, are things you do every day.

At first it didn't bother me, I couldn't see the appeal, but there's only so much home theatre one can watch. Really good movies are at a minimum, 3 months apart, and as much as I've enjoyed working on VQuest in the past, there's just nothing in it for me anymore.

Over time though, I found myself wanting more and more to be a part of that world of hers. When you've had a partner who hasn't been the least bit into computers and games, it helps you appreciate having one that is, that much more.

So I re-activated my old account a month ago, and decided I'd get my level 31 Warrior to 80 as fast as possible. A month later (yesterday), I finally made it. Not bad, if I do say so myself, for someone who has to work fulltime and can't generally do much on Tuesdays because of the weekly maintenance.

So yeah, that's where I've been. I've booked next Tuesday off; yes, that would be July 27th, and I will likely post my impresssions of Starcraft 2 :)

Gamespot FTW

I have to give a big kudos to Gamespot for providing, as far as I'm concerned, the best e3 coverage this year. Sure, other websites have also been adding their fair share of videos, but as far as I'm concerned, for sheer ease of use and video quality, their coverage has trumped the competition.

Sony, one and only?

Alright, bar a couple of hiccups with Gamespot, I was able to watch Sony's e3 2010 press conference in full.

First off, I don't know where they think they're going with the 3d thing. It's almost like they're blissfully unaware of how prohibitively expensive 3d screens are. As has been said, too, a lot of people will have only recently forked out for a hd set, and it's a good bet they're not planning another upgrade anytime soon.

I don't know who's running the show over at Sony, but until they get their heads outta their arses, they're going to lose a lot more money if they're banking on 3d selling Playstations. I see a big shakeup in that company in the months to follow, because sooner or later, they're going to start running out of money to lose.

That said, their Sorcery demo, utilising the Playstation Move, impressed the hell out of me. I really liked the look of that. I came away more impressed with Move than with Microsoft's Kinect, to be honest, if just because Microsoft's demonstration of their adventures game showcased some seriously nasty lag. If I jump IRL, I want to see my avatar in the game jump immediately.

Outside of Sorcery though, Move looks just like what Nintendo introduced with the Wiimote so many years ago. That's not good.

Nintendo are still well ahead this generation, and all e3 has really proven is that Microsoft and Sony are much more jealous of Nintendo having tapped that casual market than they'd ever admit.

Nintendo, sigh

I'm at the arse end of watching Nintendo's e3 2010 press conference, and I put it like that because, as per the usual, their press conferences bore me to tears. They've made so much money, both with the Wii and the DS, that I'd think the least they could do is hire someone who speaks tangible English (and I don't mean that annoying Reggie fella).

Ok, so in a word, they're boring.

That said, Nintendo are owning this generation. If there's anything to be gained from Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's Playstation Move, it's that they want to be Nintendo.... sooo bad. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Their botched Zelda demo made me laugh though; "please, everyone, turn off your wireless devices". How many fucking devices these days aren't wireless ones?

Their upcoming 3DS will sell a gazillion copies, but I'm not terribly enthusiastic about it. That's not to say it's not a great, great idea, but there's just no place for it in my life. I work, rest and play. At work, I'm working, at rest, I'm sleeping, and at play, I'm either on the pc, watching a movie in the home theatre, or playing Rock Band on my ps3. That's pretty much 95% of my life, right there. Sad, I know.

So yeah, much of it sucked, but there was one bit of excellent news; there's a new NBA Jam coming, and it's coming for the Wii. In the absence of it also showing up on the 360 or the ps3, you can rest assured I'll definitely be buying that on release day.

Alright, now it's time to watch Sony's conference. Wish me luck.

Microsoft Kinect

I just finished watching Microsoft's 2010 E3 Press Conference (thanks to Gamespot).

There's no denying that I'm going to buy their new motion-capture peripheral, Kinect, the day it comes out. I will even preorder that sucker.

As always though, I'm concerned about the lag. It was very evident during some of the demos that they played at the show, most noticeably the adventures pack where the guy was jumping over and crouching under barriers, and collecting coins. Compared to how brilliantly Nintendo did table tennis in Wii Sports Resort, it's positively embarassing.

Still, it all looks smoking hot, and coupled with Rock Band 3, I anticipate actually having some games to play this coming Christmas. There's a first.

Oh yeah, and for anyone who doesn't know, at the end of the conference Microsoft announced a new, slimmer 360, and then gave everybody in the audience one. While this was obviously just designed to curry favour with the attending press, I question the need. Really, if you have the money and/or connections to be able to afford to actually be at that conference, it occurs to me you should be among the last on the planet eligible for such a handout.

Being an Australian consumer pretty much sucks!

I'm going to give you a great example of where I'm going with this one.

Among other purchases, one of the titles I recently picked up from Amazon UK was Surrogates on Blu-Ray, and I got it for £8.50. The Aussie dollar is currently fetching £0.57, which means that, in my currency, I paid approximately $14.91AU for it.

The only problem is, Surrogates is still selling for $40.00AU over here, and I put that in italics because that's pretty much the price it released at.

So yeah, the situation blows over here. I could hit you with a lot more, like how corrupt the banks and the government are, but you get the point.

Out of curiosity, the Aussie dollar would have to drop from buying £0.57 to buying only £0.21 before I would be better off just getting it from a local store. I don't think it's ever been that low.

iTunes, I'm so over you!

I bought a shiny new third-generation Ipod Touch to replace my ageing old first-generation Touch about a week ago, and iTunes has been nothing but a headache ever since.

My iTunes install on my desktop would refuse to sync across any of my applications. I tried replacing the cable, restoring my device, deleting and redownloading individual apps... nothing worked.

It's fair to say that my first two hours with it were met with nothing but frustration and purchase regret, and that's a really bad way to get started.

I ended up installing iTunes on my laptop, and at first, everything was ok. It would actually sync across my purchased games to the device, which was exactly what I wanted.

That lasted a couple of days. Then it would never actually finish sync'ing. Replacing the cable (again) has fixed the problem, but I must admit, I'm starting to find myself wondering just what the next problem with this shit is going to be.

Apple's hardware is great. Truly, very great. It looks good, it's well-designed, fast, comfortable... all in all, it's great to own. Unfortunately, the software team are definitely letting the side down, and it's made what should've been a pleasurable experience a right pain in the arse.

How it went with the Room Eq Wizard (REW)

Ok, calibrated EMM-6 microphone... check. Art usb dual preamp... check. XLR male to female cable... check. Looks like it's finally time to take some measurements.

So yeah, I took the seating out of the home theatre room, moved the subwoofer to where the seating was, placed the calibrated mic on a tripod at various locations throughout the room, and then took readings with REW to determine the best bass response (from 80hz down). Where it's at its best, is the best spot for the sub to go.

First off, the right wall (where there's the big window) was total shit. Here's how that one looked halfway along that wall:

As you can see, that one goes to hell in the early 50's, and it ain't that crash hot to begin with. I then proceeded to try the front of that wall, with results that were pretty much just as bad:

Yeah, that's another epic dip around the mid 50's. I figured anywhere near the window was crap (as I've read others have generally experienced).

At this point I took a reading of the original spot, which was behind the seating position to the left:

That actually ain't that bad a spot. It does dip in the late 30's early 40's, but not by too much.

This next reading is along the middle of the left wall (just past the door):

I knew this would be bad, because I'd done the traditional subwoofer crawl playing the Ironhide flip from Transformers 1, and that had sounded terrible.

Next I moved on to the front of the left wall:

Much improved, although still something of a nasty dip in the early 50's (I figure still a bit too near the door). So here's a shot of the mic up to the left side of the front wall:

This is the money shot, if you ask me. The best spot in the house. It dips only a few dB's in the early 40's, aside from that it's just great.

Unfortunately, with the SubMersive on the table, it's height actually ends up a little above where the screen goes (wouldn't you know it), so I've had to put it closer to the front left corner, which looks a bit more like:

It dips a little in the early 40's and 50's, but once again, only by a few dB's. Nothing near the -15 to -20dB drop I was witnessing earlier.

I'll let you know how it goes after I've had a chance to recalibrate and then check out some bass-heavy content :)

Dragon Wars baby!

I finished my first-watch of Dragon Wars not long ago (purchased earlier today).

I don't ask for much, really I don't. Just give me some fighting, some action, something to stress out the Seaton SubMersive subwoofer a little bit, and wrap it up in a plot that doesn't suck. That's a pretty simple set of pre-requisites.

Dragon Wars did not disappoint. Yeah I'd seen it before, but not at that quality. I was always impressed with its fight scenes, but not impressed enough to splurge out the $40 or so they'd have been asking when it was a new release.

If you're into the sort of thing I'm into, I would recommended it. I suppose you could say it has the Venturai seal of approval then. Or something like that :)

Grand Theft Auto IV

I got quite a bit into GTA IV when it first came out on the ps3, but I always figured at some point after it's release on the PC (which was released a little later), I would pick it up on that platform. As usual with every game that has any kind of a shooting element, I figure I will enjoy playing with the mouse that much more.

As it happens, today is the day I have finally stepped into the world of Liberty City on the PC platform.

I'll open with this much; it's a great, great game. It's immersive, the world is huge and there's so much detail, so much you can do. You can sit back and watch telly, go pick up your girl and take her bowling, log online and buy a new ringtone for your phone. Hell, the independent radio station will even play your mp3s as you drive.

Right about now, you're probably wondering why I'm writing this like there's a great big BUT coming up. Ok, well, the fucking thing has been freezing on me. Everything was going great until the last couple of hours, but it has since frozen twice. And by frozen, I mean the video and audio just hang, and you have to alt-ctrl-del and force it down with task manager.

Granted, it saves your progress after every mission, but that's not really the point.

I googled the problem, and have tried a few suggestions, but it's late, and I'm not going to fire it up again until tomorrow.

Cross your fingers.

Oh yeah, and there's a pretty good chance I'm going to trade in a handful of old DS games I've got here for Rockstar's upcoming Red Dead Redemption that's coming out next week. Yeah I know, I'll have to get it on either the ps3 or 360. Nothing's perfect.

Gold Class vs La Premiere

The two major cinema chains in these parts, Event and Hoyts, both have luxury cinema solutions available to the moviegoer. Event have Gold Class and Hoyts have La Premiere, and they're like going to the movies, but on crack. The seats are a lot more luxurious, and you can buy food from a menu and have it delivered at any time during the movie.

We have frequented both establishments several times over the past few years, and I'm going to tell you all about them. I've done a lot of thinking about which is the better of the two. Bear in mind, I'm commenting on the Western Australian versions of these, and your experience in a different location could well be a completely different one.

I'll start with Gold Class. The setup there is exquisite. It feels more like you're dining in a posh restaurant than going to the movies. Everyone's very professional, polite and well-dressed. The food is pricey, and nothing's complimentary, but the seats are recliners, and the screen is always exclusively yours. It's cheap during the weekdays, but expensive in the evening, and very expensive anytime during the weekend.

La Premiere is something more akin to a makeshift setup. It's as if they took an old room upstairs, and made it into the lounge. It's reasonably well done up, but you know you're still just "going to the movies". The young guy serving you will be dressed the same as the one checking the tickets downstairs. Only one of the La Premiere screens is an exclusive screen, too, the rest are actually just balconies built higher up behind people paying normal price. The seats are comfortable enough, but they're not recliners, and the price is expensive and doesn't change nomatter when you go.

It's not all bad for La Premiere though. If you want a drink at Gold Class, you've got to pay, but La Premiere offers up complimentary soft drink and popcorn. The cups are small, but there's nothing stopping you from going back for more while the ads are showing. La Premiere food is better value for money too, you pay slightly less, for what feels like slightly more.

Despite all of this, I can't help but feel like La Premiere is the poor man's Gold Class. I don't know if it's just because La Premiere hasn't really caught on, but if you want Saturday night Gold Class tickets to the latest blockbuster and you've left it even a little too late, forget it. They get snapped up in a right hurry. La Premiere though, we've never not been able to get tickets.

That said, I couldn't really blog about all this without mentioning how the Gold Class experience has become something less than what it started out to be. The food prices have stayed the same, of course, but serving sizes have gotten smaller and smaller; you're getting a lot less than you used to. The pizza is a great example; way back when, you'd get a big ole' 12-slice round pizza. Then it was 10. Then it was a rectangle 8. Now it's a square 6. The dimensions, not to mention number of pieces, are shrinking and shrinking. I've also noticed it with the chunky chips, which I've always particularly enjoyed, but they went from a big bowl to a smaller disposable paper cone, because it saves on the washing up. The service has gotten a little sloppy too; on occasion we've been brought out the wrong stuff, sometimes it's been late, and (with the pizza we had recently) not even really all that warm. Incidentally, they used to offer a service where you could ask for a blanket, but not now; just the other day, I got "sorry, we don't do that anymore".

A lot of people might read this and think I'm mad for spending the big bucks to watch movies this way, but I live for this sorta thing, and I just can't do the normal thing anymore. Granted, IMAX is an ok alternative, but you're still just waiting in a queue while your drink gets warm.

Ultimately though, I've got to admit that the only reason I go to the movies is because they get it first. If they were released on Blu-Ray on the same day as they showed up in the cinemas, I'd never go back to Gold Class or La Premiere ever again.

Upcoming Home Theatre improvements planned

I'm going to run through the list of home theatre improvements I have planned over the next couple of weeks (while on holiday).

Tomorrow morning we're heading out to Ikea for an hour or two to have a look at shelving units (on our way to seeing Iron Man 2). The projector has been sitting on a couple of boxes for much too long now. I'm thinking, then, that something spacious, tall, and with at least 4 adjustable shelves should hit the spot. The projector will sit on the topmost shelf.

At first I was also planning on storing our Blu-Rays on this unit, but that's not going to happen now. For starters, I was never keen on housing them on a simple shelving unit (that's what bookcases are for; less deep and with backing).

It occured to me though, while watching Iron Man tonight, that I'd really like to get the receiver and the Blu-Ray player back there too. The Blu-Ray player isn't so bad, but with the room's lights out, the receiver's front panel is lit up like a Christmas tree. It will be really nice to be able to look straight forward at the screen and not also have that bright light staring you in the face. Granted, I'm going to have to follow this change up with quite a bit of rewiring, but hey, I live for this shit!

The other change involves the front wall itself. We're renting, so we can't exactly mount up a projector screen, but a workmate (who watched my Seaton SubMersive Youtube video) recommended sticking up some dark wrapping paper on the wall around where the image hits. Getting some of that should be easy enough, and I like the thought of such a change bringing some much-needed emphasis to the screen itself, but I am a little concerned about double-sided tape taking off the paint when I try to remove it down the track.

We take pretty good care of this house though (have done so for years), and if such a change can make our experience that much more rewarding, it's a chance I'm willing to take.

The shelving unit is first in line though, and with that said, I'm outta here. Wish me luck :)

Steam, still blowing chunks!

I'll start with a picture:

For anyone who's wondering, I convered this sort of thing not long ago.

This time around, the top half of the picture is the Steam price if you're connecting to the store from the US, and the bottom half is if you're connecting from Australia.

Unbelievably, both prices are in US dollars.

There's not a lot more that needs to be said about this. It was disgusting then, and it's disgusting now. The upcoming Civilization V is $49.99 vs $79.99, which is particularly disappointing because, unlike Red Faction Guerrilla, it's a title I was actually considering purchasing.

Not now though.

Fucking Australian banks!

If you kinda like money, you know, value the necessity of using it to buy food, pay the bills, put a roof over your head, all that kinda stuff... I wouldn't go to Australia anytime soon if I were you. I swear, we have the worst fucking banks on the planet.

Not all that long ago they introduced a fee where you're charged $2 if you have an account with one bank but use another bank's ATM to withdraw funds from it. So I'm with National Australia Bank (the gay!) and I use a BankWest ATM (the even gayer!), I'm charged an extra $2 on top of my deposit amount. So I can withdraw $50, and pay $52. Sweet deal, huh?

More recently, myself and the missus thought we'd set our savings accounts up with the same bank so that transfers would be more instant between them. Or so we thought. Because a $400 transfer from her account to mine that was done 30 hours ago still has not arrived. I feel like I want to ask; where's the money now? I mean, it's not in her account, and it's not in mine... so where is it?

Yeah, I know the answer. It's in a temporary account of theirs, earning them interest. Fucking unbelievable how they get away with this shit.

Humanity; being a cunt to one another since... forever.

Avatar

We picked up Avatar on Blu Ray yesterday (Wednesday 28th), and watched the first 2/3rds of it that evening.

And fuck it's good.

I'll be honest, I wasn't really all that interested, at first. The damn thing is still showing in cinemas over here, for fuck's sake. I didn't feel like it'd been long enough since we went (twice) to see it in 3D.

What got me interested though, was this comment that was linked by Sony Playstation on Twitter:

Good BD's have an average weighted bitrate around 22Mb. "Avatar" has an average weighted of about 34; peaks at over 40! (40.8), and never drops below 25. The DTS-MA track is also near perfect. with it's base rate at near 3.6Mb, high rate of 5.2!

Both of these absolutely press the boundaries of spec ... it is a very bare.. but very high quality, production.

Then I started reading reviews, and I'll be damned, but it seemed like everyone was giving it 5 out of 5 for both video and audio.

I was sold.

Granted, they're milking it. Rumour is they're adding another 6 minutes and then putting it back on the big screen. They made like 2.5 billion or something... what, that wasn't enough?

That said, there's two sides to every coin, and this Blu Ray is an absolutely stellar release. No stupid documentaries and all that crap taking up valuable disk space, just the movie at the highest quality possible.

We'll be watching the rest of it tomorrow night. I apologise in advance, Perth, for the noise that my Seaton SubMersive will be generating when the shit hits the fan.

Infinity Ward vs Activision

Ok, so it's no secret now that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 made Activision a ton of cash. Like, over a billion dollars.

In typical bosslike fashion, very little of that money made its way back to those that actually did the work. In this case, the developer, Infinity Ward. So little, infact, that the two co-founders of Infinity Ward left to form another company, Respawn Entertainment. As it happens, these guys must be quite good to work for, because about a quarter of the rest of the company have also apparently jumped ship.

This bit, I can totally understand. I know as well as anyone how good bosses are like, a needle in a haystack. If I actually found one, and were in much the same situation, shit, I'd follow that son of a bitch to hell and back.

Exploitation is the name of the game these days, and in my experience, if the average boss doesn't have to pay you more money, he won't. That said, I really hope these guys had a contract all written up, because if they did, now Activision's going to fucking pay.

Go get em, fellas!

Low self-esteem

If you have low self-esteem, do that poor bastard at work a favour, and leave it by the front fucking door before your next shift. Pick it back up on the way out when you're done, if you must, but for god's sake, give the poor cunt a day off.

I am done with fellow employees picking nits about my work to make themselves feel better. I'm fucking over it. If you have low self-esteem, go see a counsellor, a shrink, whatever, but leave me out of it. I've got my own problems.

Here's a thought; using the mistakes of others to make yourself feel better about yourself is a bit like what they try and teach you in school about doing drugs. You'll get a high, but once it wears off, you'll be in worse shape than you were to begin with.

This bitch, Karen, has been riding me for months. She's middle-aged and she's completely miserable. Frankly, it's amazing how many of these I'm meeting out there. They've generally pumped out one or two kids, have come to the conclusion they're not happy with how their lives have turned out, are depressed because of that, and somehow it's my fucking problem. I'm like... what?

Karen, happiness comes from within, sweetheart. No amount of trying to make yourself feel better at my expense is going to help, ok?

My new resume's mission statement

I'm just putting this out there for all to see. It's not like anybody's reading anyway, so it's pretty much my own personal space.

The thing is, I haven't had the best career ever. I started in a supermarket, then went to work on a farm, came back to the city and studied, had casual work, then did an "apprenticeship" (I put the quotes around that because the only thing it had in common with what I'd think an apprenticeship should be was that it was called one).

Following that, I was then unemployed for a long time, and have since spent about the last decade working in warehousing.

And through it all, there's been this one universal truth; those in charge are selfish. It seems to be the case so much in these parts, it's like it's damn-near law. If you're the sort that likes to reward those under you that are deserving, get the fuck out!

The last boss I had that was worth writing home about was in the aforementioned supermarket. If I recall correctly, that was back in 1993. He was the manager of a Coles Supermarket where I worked, and management fired him because he didn't fit the bill. That is, he was hands-on, approacheable, and wasn't a kiss-arse.

Fuck me, I wish I could remember his name. He'd make my Facebook friends list in a heartbeat.

For the longest time now, I've given up trying to find another boss like that, but I think it's time to tread the water again. There must be more out there somewhere, I've just gotta find the bastards. Talk about a needle in a haystack; for my benefit, they could at least post a sign or something.

So with that said, I'm doing away with the traditional resume-writing style, you know, where you just write the professional motivational crap that they want to hear, and I think I'm going to start sending out my resumes and application letters telling it how it is.

That said, I present the first draft of my new resume's Mission Statement:

To work with and for people I can respect. Where teamwork and cooperation are actually practiced and are experienced first-hand, rather than just talked about or pretended upon. Where 'leading by example' isn't just something that's googled to find out what it means, and where those that set the rules sport enough integrity to realise how important is it that they too, must follow those rules. Where the quality of the work being done by an individual is more important than that individual's appearance, where expecting employees to work like adults means not treating them like children, and where friends are made because people get on well and not because of the promise or possibility of preferential treatment.

The vast majority will have turned away by now, but if your workplace actually satisfies the above conditions, I'd love to hear from you, because like me, you're one in a million!

Splinter Cell: Conviction and Ubisoft

This looks quite good

I'm thinking about getting Splinter Cell: Conviction when it comes out, but it doesn't have a price on Steam yet, and then there's the fact that it's Ubisoft and they have that online DRM thing.

Ok, I don't have any experience with that thing, having bought Assassin's Creed 2 on the 360 and then passing on both Silent Hunter 5 and Settlers 7, but it must be pretty bad if they're admitting there's been some problems with it.

It's a pity, really, that Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell are both reasonably good franchises, because at this rate, I don't think they're going to bother with pc releases for much longer.

This will, of course, severely impact the number of Ubisoft titles I'll be purchasing, because there's no way I'm going to even attempt to play my shooters with a gamepad.

Why I like Home Theatre

I was reminded of exactly why I'm so much into Home Theatre last night when we went to see Clash of the Titans in 3d.

For starters, forget about bothering to get there at least 30 mins prior to the start of the movie, as per their recommendation. Give yourself a little bit of time if you're going to want to get snacks, but outside of that, there's really no point.

We showed up just over half an hour before the movie started, got our tickets and snacks, and then proceeded to wait at least 20 minutes before we could go inside. I really didn't enjoy that bit.

Once we were in there, we were then treated to about 15 minutes worth of adverts. Jesus Christ on a stick! I paid $44 for two tickets, another $30 for two drinks and two popcorns, had to stand around for 20 minutes, and now I'm being sat down to watch adverts??! Where the fuck is all the money going?

The funniest part is that their setup isn't even really that good. There were some parts that I felt would be heavy on the bass, but I wasn't getting any feedback whatsoever. Maybe they should use some of that money, and import themselves a couple Seaton SubMersives.

As for the movie, it wasn't bad, wasn't great. I wouldn't pay to see it again at the movies, but I'll definitely buy the Blu-Ray when it comes out. At least then, I'll be able to watch it on the best cinema in town; my own :)

Sometimes, I really don't like Ricky Gervais

I've been following Ricky Gervais for a while now; basically, ever since my old man got me into The Office. For the most part, his stuff has been reasonably clever. Ok, so The Invention of Lying was a load of shit, and he has an annoying habit of repeating jokes, but The Office and Extras are both worth watching.

That said, he has to seriously stop bashing fat people. It's demeaning, a bit hypocritical (leading by example FTL), and I just saw him do it for the upteenth time on the David Letterman show.

For the record, I'm no stick figure myself, but I'm not really carrying any more weight than Ricky himself. I could stand to lose a few kilos, but I have a physical job and I'm on my feet all day.

In any case, we live in a world where nobody gives a fuck about anybody else. Period. Most of us are struggling to pay the bills, and we ain't getting any kind of support from anyone else. Yeah, call me crazy, but the last time I checked my bank account, there'd been no funds deposited in there from Ricky Gervais, and I'm betting the same is true for the two fat women he bagged on that show.

So why the fuck do they have to live their lives according to his standards? You don't give a shit about them, you ain't helping them out, they don't owe you jack, mate. Do you think they give a damn what you think about their appearance? Sorry, should they? They don't fucking owe Ricky Gervais anything. As a matter of fact, they don't fucking owe anyone anything.

Christ, I'm so fucking sick of this shit. Ricky, seriously, drop it already. People are doing it hard enough in this day and age as it is without some overweight comedian stranger publically flogging them.

Honestly, who takes a personal insult about people they don't know, and turns it into a joke in order to get a few laughs on a tonight show? How fucking low can you go?

Oh no, it's a console gaming post!

PC gamers, please don't hate me :)

Sure, I've blogged about Star Trek Online, Aliens Vs Predator, Champions Online, Supreme Commander 2, and Battlefield Bad Company 2, and they're all on the pc, but there's something else; something unique that, every so often, I just enjoy returning to... and it's on a console.

My friends, I present Rock Band 2 (on the PS3).

I got into drumming in that game in a big way. I imported from the US all the addons you could think of; drum pad covers, metal pedal covers, trigger sticks, stools (sorry, thrones)... you name it, I bought it. Eventually I picked up the premium ION drumset, and then got a proper Roland setup.

Christ, you can spend a lot on this stuff. And I thought graphics cards and subwoofers were expensive :)

I have to admit, though, that it doesn't honestly get a lot of use these days. But it's like, it just sits there, ever patient. "When you want to come play me, I'll be ready".

The reason I'm motivated into an update about Rock Band (of all things), is that I've just returned from a 15-song setlist, and I had a great time. Ok, so it's different, and yeah, sometimes you just want to play a game where you get to shoot someone or blow something up, but there is a serious amount of fun to be had if you give it a chance.

Champions Online

I took the liberty (read: made the mistake) of re-activating my Champions account about a week ago.

I don't hate the game, but I don't consider the notion of having to pay by the month to play it to be a particularly good deal.

One of the main problems I have is that I'm just not a champion. One of my mains is a hero based on the Hulk. Built like a brick shithouse, blue/green skin colour, ripped like a mofo. Some kind of experiment gone wrong.

The travel power I chose for him is way cool. You activate it, and then your jumps are super jumps. I'm talking about being able to jump over buildings. I can cover ground faster than a hero with flight, and when I land, it leaves a crater in the ground.

When I move about the city, I get people come up to me to say thanks. I repelled an Alien attack, and they're grateful. It's not uncommon to walk past pedestrians making sweet comments, and if I click on someone on the phone, they pop out a "oh my god, you won't believe who's right here" to whoever they're talking to.

So what's the problem, you ask? Just about any random group of thugs just chilling on top of a skyscraper can kick my arse. Without breaking out a sweat.

So yeah, it's an ok game, but you're no hero. I'm not asking to be Superman, for fuck's sake, but then, I'm not getting killed by Lex Luthor, either.

Another problem I have is with the powers. You see, they're just about all the same. You can shoot fire out of your mouth, ice out of your hands, or electricity from out of your chest. The point is that the abilities are damned near identical, it's just different methods of delivery.

I kinda like my hulk-a-like, but after having experimented with many different power sets, my favourite is munitions. This stinks, because my idea of a superhero is not a guy running around with guns. But there you have it. So I'm having the most fun playing the skill set that feels the least like actually being a superhero.

A lot of the travel powers are pretty cool, but ultimately, I don't think it's a whole lot better than City of Heroes. I think I should have re-activated my account with that game, instead.

Supreme Commander 2 initial review

Ok, so I've played three skirmish games of Supreme Commander 2 now, and I'm going to post my initial impressions. The first game was against a normal AI, and the second and third both against a normal and a hard teamed up against me.

For starters, the game's definitely a lot more action-oriented. Like it's just really in your face. Everything builds a lot quicker, and there's no tech 1, tech 2 and tech 3 stuff. You research stuff now, and you gain research points by either building research buildings or with combat. You have different categories, like air, navy, land, structures, etc... and you spend the points to unlock things like bonuses and new units.

Yeah, forget almost everything you know about the series, either from Supreme Commander or even Total Annihilation that came so many years ago. The book has been re-written, somewhat substantially. Whether or not you like that, is up to you; I'm not necessarily saying it's good or bad.

You don't have to build mass and power storage now either, what you acquire is yours to keep. This comes with a catch; you have to have the resources now to build anything. It's very much like Command and Conquer now in that respect, and if you don't have the resources available to build that super unit, you won't be able to begin construction until you do.

The new way of doing things makes a big change to how you would use the shift key to queue up commands. If you queue up an engineer to build three anti-air turrets, for example, but you only have enough current resources for two, he's only going to build two, because all the resources for all queued structures are taken straight away. This is something I'd prefer they changed.

Come to think of it, the game is littered with technical issues like this. If you have one engineer assist another, it will only assist with the first structure in a queue, then it goes idle. You can't have engineers assist buildings like factories until after they're built too. Speaking of factories, you can put them on repeat, and they'll auto-pause if you run out of resources, but they won't auto-resume if you have enough resources once again.

These may be minor-sounding issues, but they're serving to make the gameplay a lot more frustrating than it needs to be. There's a lot more micromanagement that's needing to be done now, which feels like one fuck of a giant leap backwards.

I do like the game, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I like it more than the original. That's not to say that I don't, mind you.

The jury's still out, but if they can fix the sort of issues that I've brought up, that might just win the case for them. I'm not hopeful though, Gas Powered Games make decent enough games, but they're not known for their post-release support. Cross fingers.

Steam price fixing

One could argue this should've been assumed, given man's tendency to be greedy, but here's a picture I've just put together demonstrating how us Australian customers are paying more for our games over Steam:



The list on the left side is a capture direct from my Steam app, and the right side is a capture from my having browsed the Steam store via a proxy website (so they'd think I was living in the US of A). And believe it or not, both sets of prices are listed in $USD.

So yeah, let's look at what we've got here; among other differences, that's an extra $30 for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision), Napolean: Total War Imperial Edition (Sega) and Bioshock 2 (2k Games). Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (EA) is an extra $20, AvP (Sega again) an extra $15, and Warhammer 40k DoW2 Chaos Rising (THQ) an extra $10.

So yeah fellas, what's the deal? You taking the piss or something? Makes me laugh, when I think about it; yeah, piracy is wrong, but this shit is fine. Huh? What, it costs them more having an Australian download the game instead of an American? Of course not.

What a pity. The opportunity was there to do it so right and so well. After all, the goods are non-tangible and the internet makes the delivery. One store, prices listed in US dollars regardless of location, and all the rest of us pay is whatever the going exchange rate is at the time. Brilliant.

But no, as usual, human greed has to go fuck it up once again. Yeah, there's a switch!

Oh, and check out the dates too. Not only does the average Australian have to pay more, he's also got to wait longer before he can play it. The Yanks can start playing Supreme Commander 2 tomorrow (Tuesday March 2nd), but for reasons unknown, I've got to wait until Friday 5th.

That said, I'm grateful Supreme Commander 2 has the same price, and it's nice to see Valve themselves not engaging in this activity. At least there are a couple out there trying to do the right thing. They're the ones who'll be getting all my business from now on.

Star Trek Online

If I could sum up STO in 3 words it'd likely be:

SERVER NOT RESPONDING

Ok, so that's a bit harsh, but over the course of a few hours, it's something I did encounter several times.

It's actually not a bad game. you get a quest, warp to a certain area, and investigate. Investigations usually come in several parts, one typically involves some sort of ship combat and the other planetary combat. Hail starfleet, hand in and collect reward, then either head back to Sol to upgrade or do the next quest.

But I like it.

Granted, I only probably like it because it's coated in Star Trek, but hey, that's what they're going for, right?

Star Trek Online - what was I thinking?

A few hours ago I caved, and purchased Star Trek Online on Steam. My bad.

I've always loved Star Trek, despite finding it hypocritical that a species of our selfish volatility would do a show in which we're the peaceful explorers of the galaxy, surrounded by the aggressive, warmongering types.

Oh the irony.

It's academic, at any rate, because Steam is reporting that "your purchase is still being processed", and I can't do anything with it. No, it won't even let me start downloading the client files.

I can log into my bank's internet banking though, and I see the transaction for it listed, clear as day.

Money I wish I could get back, truth be told.