The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is stunning. No question about that. I'm not prepared to write a blog post about how wonderful Skyrim is; there are approximately seven-hundred thousand, six-hundred and nintety-four and a half blog posts on that exact subject, if you're interested. What I'm interested in talking about is the fact that I don't seem to own my copy of the game.
I don't have a job, because I'm too young. Therefore I was required to pay for half of the game while my dear brother payed for the other half. Our plan was to install the game on both our seperate computers in order to avoid dividing play-time between us. That was when I discovered the Steamworks digital rights management system. All I knew of it before was that your game was automatically installed onto popular games libary Steam, rather than as a seperate program. Fine. Then I was informed by no less than Pete Hines of Bethesda Softworks that "one copy means one game". Basically, either me or my brother could install the game, the other one was as stuffed as a teddy bear who'd just eaten a large meal and been told he couldn't install Skyrim on his computer. Fortunately, my brother (who does have a job, therefore rendering him one million times more responsible and less likely to commit crime, according to most members of Parliment) bought a copy for himself, meaning that we could both hide away from the bleak coldness of real life. I've currently spent 168 hours doing so.
But the thing that rankles with me is the issue we had. We both bought the game. Surely that disk is now our property, to do as we will with it. If you want to stop us uploading it to Piratebay, put some software on it that stops that from happening. Don't **** over customers by forcing them to shell out for two games just because you're worried about piracy. The "One copy, one game" rule implies that we had rented the game from Bethseda to install and now we must give it back and never look at it again because IT'S THEIR'S. When I voiced a rather more modest version of these opinions to Mr Hines himself, I was called "selfish", "Self-entitling" and "a wannabe pirate" by onlookers, who had obviously bought the game for Xbox 360 or supported SOPA. The two of us had a right to both install the game, because we both payed money for it. In fact, they actually lost money on this transaction, because my brother ended up buying the game through Steam itself, giving a portion of the money to Valve, the Steam developers. Oopsie daisie.
I was only joking about the SOPA support. Imagine if people actually agreed with it! Imagine if Congress did! Ha!
Now leave me.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Tour Guide Removal Service
Old ruined castles. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. They’ll have battlements, and a keep, and a gift shop where the armoury used to be, called “The Armoury Gift Shop”, or some other life-sappingly imaginative name. Worse still, they’ll run a guided tour.
It’s bad enough walking around these fetid piles of stone and feudalism. Trudge trudge. Look, some stones! Trudge trudge. This is where they fired arrows at attackers! It looks a lot like the other holes they used to fire arrows at attackers! Trudge trudge. Does anyone think that pile of stones there looks like a boot? Shut up and keep trudging! But then an overly chirpy or terminally bored very young or very old person will walk you around the ruin, pointing out all of the tiny little details you didn’t notice before because you really have better things to do, like counting the number of spots on that man’s face, or guessing how many people threw themselves from the battlements on one of the guided tours. You will be informed there is a re-enactment at midday, in which a couple of gap-year students dress up in ill-fitting false armour and go through a painfully unexciting impression of a swordfight, or a jousting match, or a demonstration of how bad sanitation was back then. Ha ha, he threw poo on his head! How savage these people are, with their lack of flushing toilets.
None of this compares, however to the most hideous experience of all: The guided tour abroad.
It’s the same combination of boredom and rock. But this time the endless droning may as well be in Elvish for all you know. Your look of bored befuddlement will be noticed by the tour guide, who will suddenly stop his incredibly long sentence and turn to you. In the tone used by adults explaining to a child that the custard goes into the mouth, not in the ears, they will say “is tower”. All of that, just to say that it was a tower? Any other details are irrelevant really. It’s a tower. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great uncle might have died there (as many French tour guides are keen to suggest, the smug people from France), but I really don’t care. Rock is rock, stone is stone, homicidal impulses are making a great deal of sense right now. Then you feel guilty and stupid, as your failure to listen at school has required the tour guide to stop boring the tears out of the others to direct the boredom beam straight at you. All that boredom isn’t just for you, you know! Now keep trudging! Allez!
It’s bad enough walking around these fetid piles of stone and feudalism. Trudge trudge. Look, some stones! Trudge trudge. This is where they fired arrows at attackers! It looks a lot like the other holes they used to fire arrows at attackers! Trudge trudge. Does anyone think that pile of stones there looks like a boot? Shut up and keep trudging! But then an overly chirpy or terminally bored very young or very old person will walk you around the ruin, pointing out all of the tiny little details you didn’t notice before because you really have better things to do, like counting the number of spots on that man’s face, or guessing how many people threw themselves from the battlements on one of the guided tours. You will be informed there is a re-enactment at midday, in which a couple of gap-year students dress up in ill-fitting false armour and go through a painfully unexciting impression of a swordfight, or a jousting match, or a demonstration of how bad sanitation was back then. Ha ha, he threw poo on his head! How savage these people are, with their lack of flushing toilets.
None of this compares, however to the most hideous experience of all: The guided tour abroad.
It’s the same combination of boredom and rock. But this time the endless droning may as well be in Elvish for all you know. Your look of bored befuddlement will be noticed by the tour guide, who will suddenly stop his incredibly long sentence and turn to you. In the tone used by adults explaining to a child that the custard goes into the mouth, not in the ears, they will say “is tower”. All of that, just to say that it was a tower? Any other details are irrelevant really. It’s a tower. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great uncle might have died there (as many French tour guides are keen to suggest, the smug people from France), but I really don’t care. Rock is rock, stone is stone, homicidal impulses are making a great deal of sense right now. Then you feel guilty and stupid, as your failure to listen at school has required the tour guide to stop boring the tears out of the others to direct the boredom beam straight at you. All that boredom isn’t just for you, you know! Now keep trudging! Allez!
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Me VS People who know what they're talking about.
I got into a bit of trouble this evening. I wrote an article for a school newsletter complaining about middle class females acting in a sexist manner towards men. I failed to mention that I am staunchly opposed to sexism of all forms, and that I wasn't trying to pass off all feminists as screeching harridans in dungarees. I wasn't, just so you know.
The article in question was written for a school newsletter, as I said. I had no idea it was going to go beyond the classroom. Instead it was found by feminist group YouFem. They promptly wrote a scorching deconstruction of my piece,bemoaning my opinions, my lack of knowledge, and most importantly, my use of English. My sardonic humour had touched a nerve, it seems. Or perhaps more accurately a nerve party. Or a nerve riot, considering the response. My article was not meant to change world views on feminism. I very much wish that the subjugation of women across the world could stop. I'd go in there myself, if I could afford the transport costs and money needed for a full suit of plate armour. It was what all my blog posts and articles are: hyperbolic, sarcastic, hopefully amusing rants on things that have got on my wick recently.
If I was my internet persona, I would have replied in a witty fashion, perhaps made some jokes about the fact many of my grammatical errors were in fact mistakes made during copying. I certainly did not use that many exclamation marks. However, I am not my internet persona. In life, when I am confronted with trouble or any confrontation at all, I panic. I grovel, I plead, I make excuses and I hide in a corner. I did all these things. Fortunnately, I was able to find my internet persona and write an article in tandem with Mr Scaredypants Mchidey.
Think what you want about me and the article, and be sure to check out the Youfem blog and twitter feed. (Type in "YouFem to the search engine of your choice(google)).
Thanks.
The article in question was written for a school newsletter, as I said. I had no idea it was going to go beyond the classroom. Instead it was found by feminist group YouFem. They promptly wrote a scorching deconstruction of my piece,bemoaning my opinions, my lack of knowledge, and most importantly, my use of English. My sardonic humour had touched a nerve, it seems. Or perhaps more accurately a nerve party. Or a nerve riot, considering the response. My article was not meant to change world views on feminism. I very much wish that the subjugation of women across the world could stop. I'd go in there myself, if I could afford the transport costs and money needed for a full suit of plate armour. It was what all my blog posts and articles are: hyperbolic, sarcastic, hopefully amusing rants on things that have got on my wick recently.
If I was my internet persona, I would have replied in a witty fashion, perhaps made some jokes about the fact many of my grammatical errors were in fact mistakes made during copying. I certainly did not use that many exclamation marks. However, I am not my internet persona. In life, when I am confronted with trouble or any confrontation at all, I panic. I grovel, I plead, I make excuses and I hide in a corner. I did all these things. Fortunnately, I was able to find my internet persona and write an article in tandem with Mr Scaredypants Mchidey.
Think what you want about me and the article, and be sure to check out the Youfem blog and twitter feed. (Type in "YouFem to the search engine of your choice(google)).
Thanks.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Death is not the cleanser
A few weeks ago, I was making a (perhaps slightly in poor taste) joke about Osama Bin Laden, and later one about Jade Goody. I was told angrily both times, by the same person, not to "disrespect the dead". Now excuse if I'm being inconsiderate here, but if a person who had no qualms (allegedly) about ordering thousands of people to be killed and a person who made a career out of being ignorant and racist die, does this suddenly elevate them to the point of some kind of saint? Last time I checked, being racist twice doesn't count as your two miracles. What I'm really trying to say is that if a person does things to attract ridicule in life, dying does not cleanse them of that and make them better than me, because I'm not dead. It all goes a bit Final Fantasy X: "The world is bette governed in death" on you, and you begin to feel like maybe you should be dead too, to join in on the party.
More on this later.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
To Mii, to U. (Dear god I'm sorry)
From what I've seen of the new Nintendo console, the WiiU, I have to say it's both a step forward and a shot in the foot. I'll explain why I think this through the medium of a numbered bullet point list:
Bear in mind the aforementioned shots in the foot are more to do with the E3 announcement than the console. As a nintendo fanboy, I'd rather gouge out my own eyes that criticise anything they make.
Good
1. The controller is an excellent idea, the information streaming thing is cool, and it's good to see the return of a "true" console controller to shut the haters up.
2. The graphical power of the console looks to be fine, though slightly below that of what the Xbox 360 can do when pressed. Then again, it's still early days, and I have no doubt that can be improved. Tech demo looked great already, mind you.
3. Proper online play you say? Wonderful, thanks.
4. The third party support is some of the best Nintendo has enjoyed in years. Titles such as Assasin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online and Batman: Arkham City could help to attract a more hardcore fanbase, but not to the point where Nintendo simply becomes another faceless creator of realism machines for blowing up imaginary communists.
5. Full backward compatibility with all Wii software and hardware, not to mention 1080P HD. NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.
Problems with the show.
1. It got a little confusing a bit of the way through, or at least I thought it did. Maybe I'm just dim.
2. Not actually showing the console was a mistake. It lead many people to think the WiiU was just a Wii add-on, and that's not the sort of first impression you want to make.
3. I personally think holding onto the Wii name was a mistake. For a start it leads people to believe this is an add-on for the Wii,as indeed happened. But more importantly, the Wii doesn't have a good name with the regular gamer who doesn't play Nintendo games. Thanks to lazy developers, the Wii is now synonomous with lazy ports, poor controls and mini game collections. None of these are real problems, but that's the sort of view shared by a sad number of people. This won't help.
Tell me how I'm wrong and feel free to abuse me. I find it delicious.
Bear in mind the aforementioned shots in the foot are more to do with the E3 announcement than the console. As a nintendo fanboy, I'd rather gouge out my own eyes that criticise anything they make.
Good
1. The controller is an excellent idea, the information streaming thing is cool, and it's good to see the return of a "true" console controller to shut the haters up.
2. The graphical power of the console looks to be fine, though slightly below that of what the Xbox 360 can do when pressed. Then again, it's still early days, and I have no doubt that can be improved. Tech demo looked great already, mind you.
3. Proper online play you say? Wonderful, thanks.
4. The third party support is some of the best Nintendo has enjoyed in years. Titles such as Assasin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online and Batman: Arkham City could help to attract a more hardcore fanbase, but not to the point where Nintendo simply becomes another faceless creator of realism machines for blowing up imaginary communists.
5. Full backward compatibility with all Wii software and hardware, not to mention 1080P HD. NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.
Problems with the show.
1. It got a little confusing a bit of the way through, or at least I thought it did. Maybe I'm just dim.
2. Not actually showing the console was a mistake. It lead many people to think the WiiU was just a Wii add-on, and that's not the sort of first impression you want to make.
3. I personally think holding onto the Wii name was a mistake. For a start it leads people to believe this is an add-on for the Wii,as indeed happened. But more importantly, the Wii doesn't have a good name with the regular gamer who doesn't play Nintendo games. Thanks to lazy developers, the Wii is now synonomous with lazy ports, poor controls and mini game collections. None of these are real problems, but that's the sort of view shared by a sad number of people. This won't help.
Tell me how I'm wrong and feel free to abuse me. I find it delicious.
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Pop Rockalypse
This is something I wrote a long time ago, but I thought I'd share it with you all, if only so you can all enjoy a hearty chuckle at my amateurishness.
Many are familiar with Blink 182 and their wonderfully catchy brand of sing-along, humorous pop/punk/rock, also practised by bands like The Offspring and Green Day to varying degrees of success. A bit of harmless fun, you may think. WRONG. It’s killing rock music stone dead. Ten years ago all you could see on Keerang and MTV were track suited, dreadlocked buffoons rapping brainlessly about their parents being a minute late to their birthday party over noisy, atonal sludge. Now you can’t spend more than five minutes on any rock video or radio station without hearing the latest single from “I love my college girlfriend” or “My Glorious Coming Out Party”. It’s enough to make you want to prostrate yourself in front of what’s left of Limp Bizkit, begging them to release another album.
More harmless fun, you may think, but no, because every single song from these groups of overly chirpy oxygen thieves is a piece of pure evil, specially formulated to lodge itself in your brain so firmly the only way out is a war hammer to the cerebral cortex. It’s quite simple to make one yourself, so here’s a simple recipe:
1. Take either a Green Day or Blink 182 songbook, and change the order of the sections, just to avoid suspicion.
2. Make up some serviceable yet empty lyrics about being stuck in a rut, and then a catchy chorus imploring the listener to “show me what you really want” or “Come back to me”. Or quite simply repeat an interesting word like “swing” or “Socioeconomics”
3. Make a video of your band playing the song (taking note to hide the songbook you’re playing from) that features at least one member of Fall Out Boy or New Found Glory. Tadah! Enjoy your two albums of success!
Alternatively, you could take a Backstreet Boys song, and overdub some heavy guitars to fool your listeners into believing you can write your own songs. Must dash, I’ve got to go lock myself away with a Mudvayne album, which now sounds like mana from heaven.
Take what you will from that.
Many are familiar with Blink 182 and their wonderfully catchy brand of sing-along, humorous pop/punk/rock, also practised by bands like The Offspring and Green Day to varying degrees of success. A bit of harmless fun, you may think. WRONG. It’s killing rock music stone dead. Ten years ago all you could see on Keerang and MTV were track suited, dreadlocked buffoons rapping brainlessly about their parents being a minute late to their birthday party over noisy, atonal sludge. Now you can’t spend more than five minutes on any rock video or radio station without hearing the latest single from “I love my college girlfriend” or “My Glorious Coming Out Party”. It’s enough to make you want to prostrate yourself in front of what’s left of Limp Bizkit, begging them to release another album.
More harmless fun, you may think, but no, because every single song from these groups of overly chirpy oxygen thieves is a piece of pure evil, specially formulated to lodge itself in your brain so firmly the only way out is a war hammer to the cerebral cortex. It’s quite simple to make one yourself, so here’s a simple recipe:
1. Take either a Green Day or Blink 182 songbook, and change the order of the sections, just to avoid suspicion.
2. Make up some serviceable yet empty lyrics about being stuck in a rut, and then a catchy chorus imploring the listener to “show me what you really want” or “Come back to me”. Or quite simply repeat an interesting word like “swing” or “Socioeconomics”
3. Make a video of your band playing the song (taking note to hide the songbook you’re playing from) that features at least one member of Fall Out Boy or New Found Glory. Tadah! Enjoy your two albums of success!
Alternatively, you could take a Backstreet Boys song, and overdub some heavy guitars to fool your listeners into believing you can write your own songs. Must dash, I’ve got to go lock myself away with a Mudvayne album, which now sounds like mana from heaven.
Take what you will from that.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Black Books and the joy of misanthropy
Dylan Moran is a wonderful man. He’s probably actually very nice in real life, but I’m more interested in his personas as Bernard Black in Black Books and his stand-up performances. In both he portrays a mildly alcoholic, bitter Irishman utterly unconcerned with other people’s issues and harbouring a deep hatred for nigh-on everything in the world. And sadly, I find myself drawn to this view of the world. Everybody has days when they want to take a potato peeler to the skin of all their enemies, friends and gardeners, simply because they NO LONGER CARE about everybody else’s issues. This seems great to me; I can listen to some people’s issues, but when people are complaining about ferrets invading their mind and turning it into a miniature replica of Midgar, that’s me done, I’m finished, the door is right there, stand there while I hit you with it.
However, this viewpoint also stretches to the way you feel about your personal possessions. A memorable scene in Black Books is the occasion when Bernard, who has spent every episode in the same black suit jacket, black shirt and black trousers, has his clothes washed by a well-meaning visitor. Coming into the room, looking slightly disgusted, these clothes are found to be a bright white. “Who shaved me? Who washed my clothes!?” Cries Moran, with the tone of somebody who had been recently violated, and left in a ditch. It’s not so much the fact that his filthy suit has been washed, it’s the fact that Somebody Else Has Touched His Things. I share this. They are my things; I don’t want you putting your filthy well-meaning balanced individual hands on my things. I don’t even want you inside my personal space, because IT’S MINE, and I’m the only person worth talking to in here.
Also, I like the idea of spending most of my life in a bookshop, drinking copious amounts, though I can skip the chain-smoking.
P.S: Like Dylan Moran, I’m not really like this in real life. I like to imagine I would be, but if that was so I’d have nobody to talk to, or indeed read this.
However, this viewpoint also stretches to the way you feel about your personal possessions. A memorable scene in Black Books is the occasion when Bernard, who has spent every episode in the same black suit jacket, black shirt and black trousers, has his clothes washed by a well-meaning visitor. Coming into the room, looking slightly disgusted, these clothes are found to be a bright white. “Who shaved me? Who washed my clothes!?” Cries Moran, with the tone of somebody who had been recently violated, and left in a ditch. It’s not so much the fact that his filthy suit has been washed, it’s the fact that Somebody Else Has Touched His Things. I share this. They are my things; I don’t want you putting your filthy well-meaning balanced individual hands on my things. I don’t even want you inside my personal space, because IT’S MINE, and I’m the only person worth talking to in here.
Also, I like the idea of spending most of my life in a bookshop, drinking copious amounts, though I can skip the chain-smoking.
P.S: Like Dylan Moran, I’m not really like this in real life. I like to imagine I would be, but if that was so I’d have nobody to talk to, or indeed read this.
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