Apples and Pears

I hate the new iPod. It's not because I'm against portable media players. It's not because its forced the reconciliation of Pixar and Disney. It's not because even with their new H.264 codec, the movies are still low resolution and of fairly crap quality. It's not because its even harder than the PSP to watch anything other than overpriced iTMS videos. And it's not because, after pointing at other portable video devices a year ago, Steve Jobs said "there's no market or content for them, and the screens are too small anyway" (but announced at the same time the iPod would support photos, even though they're often 3 or 4 times the size of the current iTMS videos).


No. It's because, although I'm perfectly happy with my iPod mini (which has been swiftly and very subtlely replaced by the iPod nano) and I have no need for nor the money to buy a new iPod, I want one. I want one more than any other portable device I can think of.

And this is my major gripe with Apple in general. They produce an entire warehouse-filling array of what can be only be described as entirely useless products, that serve no purpose for more than 99.9% of the average desktop user population. Unless you're some kind of sound studio technician, who has an absolute need for all £699-worth of Logic Pro 7, you'll end up paying 2 or 3 times as much for an Apple computer that is 1) slower, 2) supports pretty much bugger all REAL software and 3) will cost you a fortune in Microsoft Office software because you'll actually have to buy it for once.

Once you push past all the gimmicks that Apple throw right in your face (the widgets you'll play with for 10 minutes or so, the fading icons and folders that you just get used to, the fancy camera thing they've shoved in so all your internet girlfriends can really see how ugly you are) there's not much there anymore. No more downloading random trials of things and lengthening their lifespan thanks to Referat, no more demos of games you'll never buy, and no more Half-Life 2. Even though they've been kind enough to throw in an ATI Radeon X600 Pro in the new iMac G5's.

But that doesn't mean I don't want one. To have just a 20" bright white flat panel screen sitting on my desk begging me to turn it on gives me the chills (I need a girlfriend). It shouldn't do, it really shouldn't, but it does. And even though I have no need for GarageBand I'd still spend hours writing random songs just wishing I had the money to upgrade to Logic. Unfortunately the £1,200 Apple want from me for a 20" iMac G5 is going to have to come mainly from selling my body. And unfortunately, I'm picking up a lot of mileage.

Bugger.

They look like the things they look like

I've sold out and added a Photo Album to my blog so that people can be perverted and stare at me and my friends in the awkward situations I've posted to the internet for all to see. That didn't make sense.

Anyways, there's folders of pictures of random people and places under "Albums", and then there's some photos I'm particularly proud of (ie the 1 in every 100 photos that vaguely looks like what it's supposed to) that I've placed under "Originals". If you're interested in obtaining full size copies of any of the photos you can kiss my arse. Or email me.

It's a boy!

Now normally I don't cover entertainment/human-interest stories, but this is a special occassion. Yup, Britney Spears has given birth to a bouncing fat baby boy. It's apparently named after a Northern England football club, but more on that later.

The Britney Spears Live! DVD is due out October 2nd

Now, you may say its unlike me to welcome into the world a baby doomed to a life of misery (yes, misery) - but this is an opportunity for Britney Spears to prove she can do something vaguely useful with her life (let's face it, she hasn't even come close so far). Namely, successfully raise a child in Texas. Pitfalls of such an environment include (but are not limited to) mass hype over creationism Intelligent Design and the hysterical enforcement of the 2nd ammendment.

Celebrities turned up to the birth-giving ceremony at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California to wish Spears a happy birth after 29 well earned hours of labour. Michael Jackson emerged stating only that "[he likes] them fat". Other well-wishers included George Bush who took time out of his busy schedule to visit the star whose house borders with his ranch. When reporters questioned him on the scale of devastation caused on the Gulf Coast and whether that's where his attention would be better placed, he simply replied "of course there's devstation, we caused it. Where the hell do you think we've been bombing the last two years?"

Careful with your comments

So, Slashdot's got a story on a guy who's being sued for comments posted on his blog (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/31/1427228). Apparently, someone's posted a comment moaning about Traffic-Power.com which has pissed them off enough to file a civil suit against said person's blog.

American law is horrifically complex, to the point where its not even worth anyone without at least 3 years of law school commenting on situations that involve the law. Which is why everybody, especially anyone remotely judicial involved in such cases, should take a moral and decent look at the situation. Not only is he being sued for comments posted to his site BY SOMEBODY ELSE, which is enough to make you even wonder how they're allowed to file suit, but they should take a completely moral standing when deciding the case.

Just as ethics committee's in the States decide whether a patient should undergo surgery based on their medical and drug history (you can guarantee George Best wouldn't have gotten a liver transplant in the states no matter how many times he yelled 'but I was in the 1966 England World Cup winning squad' at the top of his new pair of lungs - not so much because he could have been taking the liver away from an 8-year-old girl who desperately needed the transplant, but more because they really don't care about football over there), they should have a committee that decides whether someone can really file suit and win a case when the people submitting the suit are, for lack of a better word, "evil", and not in the moral position to be winning such a case.

It would be so easy for the judge to justify his ruling as well. For example, if Microsoft submitted a law suit against somebody he could just say "but you've got enough money already". Microsoft can't complain that much, because they wouldn't really care, and everyone would feel a great sense of pride that the legal system was "working" for the first time in history.

In this case, its purely a matter of the fact that the company filing the suit are called Traffic-Power.com. That's right, they're a glorified, legal spam outfit. They're responsible for internet adverts. And not the good ones like Google AdWords and Google AdSense that generate revenue for the little people, pathetic, annoying pop-up adverts and the like. So to Traffic-Power.com I say - go fuck yourselves. In the nicest possible way. After all, I don't want to get sued. Oh, shit.

Chav Idiot

So I was worried that my new tighter t-shirts would push me into the realm of being considered - at times, to people with bad eyesight - a chav. Fortunately I'm informed I look like someone who listens to emo. (Wait, that's not better). Anyway, I received a rather random email from someone I didn't know containing only a hotmail email address. Confused, I decided to look this address up in the MSN members directory to see if it was someone I did know. It wasn't. But what I found made me instantly remember the difference between me and, well, them. I'm enough of a privacy activist not to disclose the person's email address directly, nor therefore their MSN member directory profile. However, there was a link to their website on their profile, which I feel obligated to show to as many people as possible. I hope its a joke, I really do. But from the poor HTML skills I feel that either its a very well produced mock up (like the excellently made website for Gareth from The Office) or it is, in fact, for real.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, this person is a chav idiot.
http://www.agame.piczo.com

The Depths of My Psyche

I'm told that in a few years time looking at this blog will be "a deep look at my inner psyche" - I'm not convinced, though I was quite taken back by how much impact looking at MSN logs from 2 or 3 years ago had on me, so you never know. Anyway I'm going to list important things related to my life at this time in the hopes that it will give me an insight in a few years time. If Blogger is still going then of course.

- I like Dave Matthews Band. Though this has been true since 2001, so I'm not expecting it to change anytime soon.
- I like Fall Out Boy. This has been true only since last year, but nonetheless I don't believe this will change in the near future either.
- I failed my second year at uni. That's right. I'm an idiot. Apparently, idiots don't keep blogs, so I like the fact I'm being original. If there's one thing I like, its originality.
- I like originality.
- Extras is better than I expected it to be.
- I'm poor. Very, very poor.
- Now is recently after the 7th July London bombings.
- Thanks to my stylist, I'm about to undergo a radical style change. I'll keep you posted on this one.
- I like girls. (You never know)
- I don't have a girlfriend. (You never know)
- I'm pining to be in a band of considerable quality - I'm hoping this is going to come through for me, though its looking rather doubtful as of late.

That's enough for now. I might make it a habit to post lists like this over certain periods of time, but I think this is kind of the point of a blog anyway so we'll see how it all works out.