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?