Well, I’m enjoying it immensely. Hate to throw another theory on the pile, but follow me after the jump and I’ll blow your mind.
Hooray for GiantBomb which handed out a bunch of Star Trek Online beta keys a couple of weeks back, allowing myself and Mr. MyCousin to play through this beta.
Let me first state upfront that I have never played World of Warcraft. I have played trials of EVE, Warhammer Online, Final Fantasy XI and even the first Everquest though, and I found these games to be little more than repetitive almost storyless RPGs with unnecessarily clunky interfaces and control systems. Even with Warhammer Online, whose world and background I have some nostalgic love for, nothing about these games seemed like they would be in any way worth the effort and investment in both time and money required to enjoy them.
I should also admit at this point that I am something of a Trekkie, having seen all seven seasons of The Next Generation (over a stretch in 2006), and owning the first six of Deep Space 9, plus all of the movies, and having seen most of Voyager and about half of The Original Series… Read into that what you may, the point is that the universe of Star Trek is something I am fairly well versed in.
So, Star Trek Online? I must say that I have been pleasantly surprised. It seemed like it could have been a massive mess of clashing styles and stories, but somehow they’ve managed to pull it all together in a cohesive direction. Everyone is given their own ship in the game, and they have their own away team for ground missions. There are three fairly wide open character classes based on Star Fleet divisions of Tactical (red shirt), Engineering (gold shirt) and Science (blue shirt) (the same breakdown exists on the Klingon Empire side too), but what’s particularly interesting is the level of customisation on offer, even if it is cosmetic. Characters can be chosen from a number of races, or the player can create unique alien of a race of their own design. Which is what I did obviously. Enter Lt. Cmdr. Uderik Zabop Ankyla Amundsen of the USS Surfingturd (and later, the USS Bustard Booby and the USS Baboon Funk Egg).
Woo, it’s 2010, and actually I had a pretty Tony Tiger style holiday. Currently back in Perth, chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool…
I had a couple of posts I was working on for the end of last year which were interrupted by the valve of my radiator leaking and flooding the floor, resulting in an impromptu carpet lifting and subsequent redecoration. That aside, fun hanging out here with family where I get fed, and get to play with the dogs. Oscar’s successor, Alfie, is full of energy, and enjoying the snow.
Speaking of snow, holy friggin’ crap… The last major snowfall was about a week ago now, and it’s still ankle deep. I built a snow pyramid on the front lawn. I’ll get a picture when I get new batteries for me camera. This has been the best Christmas in years. Presents were nice and all, nothing earth-shattering, but just getting a brief respite from the mundane horror of my current Glasgow job-hunt/panic has been wonderful. But at the same time, I’m feeling like I’m ready to take on 2010 with a lot more vigour than 2009 (which kind of went downhill at a breakneck pace from July onward).
Not all great stuff though, as I discovered that the wonderful singer-songwriter, Vic Chesnutt, whose music has struck a particular chord in me for several years (though I only have his two sublime Constellation Records releases), died on Christmas day after falling into a coma caused by an intentional overdose of muscle relaxants. His troubled life and times, his dark humour, his quiet resilience were all evident in his songs, though his recent song “Flirted With You All My Life” revealed, with astonishing honesty and poignancy, his suicidal tendencies. I genuinely welled up the first time I heard it, and almost every time since in fact. That his death came not because of his quadriplegia or other health complications, but instead because of crippling financial debt (often claimed to be $50-70k) to and recent lawsuit by the ridiculous American healthcare system, that is a tragedy that will continue to affect many more lives, all while the Glenn Beck Myopic Historical Misappropriation Society of White Christian America go on making their utterly absurd comparisons of a public option to the policies of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
Vic Chesnutt couldn’t get insurance because of the severity of his condition. That Americans would rather the government shovel money into a big Afghanistan shaped hole than dare to try and provide an option of basic healthcare to people in their own country, it’s just utterly incomprehensible. But ignoring the political tangent, Vic Chesnutt is a man whose songs will continue to be a part of my life, and his beautiful voice and unorthodox guitar style born of necessity will remain a burning inspiration for my own clumsy attempts to articulate my emotions. Thanks.
Lots of unexpected and expected deaths this past year, or more so than usual it seems. And I’ve had many significant troubles of my own. Yet despite this, there has been joy and light pulling me ever forward. I always make promises to myself at this time of year, that I fail to keep, as I settle back into old bad habits. Time for me to stop talking, and start doing methinks. After all, things happen because people make them happen. Time to grow up.
I’m getting awfully sick of people referring to the last decade as the “noughties”, as though there’s no historical precedent for naming the first decade of a century. It was the twenty-hundreds damn it. On the plus side though, it looks like we’ve moved from two-thousand-and-nine to twenty-ten, which for some reason makes me feel happy.
I’m hoping to have something interesting to present in the next couple of weeks, finally some creation to show for all of 2009’s self-inflicted tribulations. More details then.
Here’s to stubborn persistence, and the tiny speck of hope that shines out of the bottom of a seemingly bottomless black pit.
“In training to run a marathon
Miles and miles and miles
With your Sunday shoes on”Marathon by Vic Chesnutt
Oh joy of joys children, it is that time of year again, in which I, a hopeless nobody languishing in the bleak depths of the internet, raises his voice for a truly arbitrary annual tradition that somehow feels important.
After some serious deliberation, this is what I’ve settled on.
- maudlin of the Well – Part the Second
- Do Make Say Think – Other Truths
- Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
- Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free
- Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul
- Big Business – Mind the Drift
- Years – Years
- Crippled Black Phoenix – The Resurrectionists/Night Raider
- Pelican – What We All Come to Need
- Porcupine Tree – The Incident
I’m slightly ashamed to say that I haven’t fully absorbed everything I bought this year, I’d probably be better off moving to Brandon Wu’s system of doing his list one year later (ie. this would be top 10 2008) just to let everything settle, and to pick up everything I missed or overlooked this year, but I find there are some benefits to the traditional way. For one thing, it encourages me to do some focussed listening, which I enjoy, and don’t do nearly enough of.
Read this on the BBC News site.
Now, normally I’m not into these kinds of things. Last year the three way Hallelujah contest really pissed me off. And again this year, both songs are owned by the same record label. But here’s what I think is different this time:
Firstly, lyrically, conceptually, musically, Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name is an anthem of defiance. “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me.” Plus, it’s actually a pretty cool song. I’ve accidentally grown to quite like Rage without having any of their music.
Secondly, does anyone really want a fifth (yes, it’ll be FIVE YEARS IN A ROW) X-Factor Christmas no.1? Does anyone even remember 2007? Does anyone who watches that stupid show (note, that I’m making a distinction between the people who watch that stupid show and the show itself) care about these bland singers singing tepid covers of lukewarm material in the least exciting way possible? Isn’t it all about the judges and their ridiculous ego-battle? And a Miley Cyrus song? What the fuck? I guess people really do like that kind of thing for some bizarre reason, but come on.
But hey, maybe, just maybe, there’s more of us, the ones tired of it, who have this one chance to beat them. So why not take that chance? And hey, even if you do like the X-Factor song, wouldn’t you rather it were not Christmas no.1, so that you won’t be overexposed to it by New Years Day? It’s not like they’ll play Rage that much even if they do get the top spot, even if they use the censored version.
So, if you’re on Facebook (which I am not), go visit the group for more details of this grassroots FUCK YOU campaign.
Can this work? Normally I’d say no. But here’s the thing – Rage Against the Machine is currently in the lead in download sales. Apparently the X-Factor CD single comes out tomorrow, so now’s the time to act. The label, and therefore Simon Cowell, will be getting the money either way, but at least this’ll destroy his arrogant assumption that the X-Factor is entitled to a Christmas No.1 every year, just because.
Here’s the download links, for all of the three mysterious people who read this blog. But here’s the thing: If you buy a load of them from the same place, the official chart folks are smart enough to eliminate those sales to make it fair.
So buy one. And tell your friends. It’s cheap.
iTUNES – 99p – track #2 (click on ‘view in itunes’ on the right) http://bit.ly/ratm-itunes
PLAY.COM – 65p – it’s the only track on the page http://bit.ly/ratm-play
7DIGITAL – 50p – track #2 http://bit.ly/rage-7digital
HMV.COM – 79p (careful – this is track #1) http://bit.ly/ratm-hmv
TUNETRIBE – 49P – track #2 – LIVE version (yes it counts) http://bit.ly/ratm-tunetribe or http://bit.ly/rage-tunetribe (Studio Version)
TESCO DIGITAL – 67p – track #2 http://bit.ly/ratm-tesco
AMAZON – 29p – YES IT COUNTS: CONFIRMED http://bit.ly/rage-amazon
WE7 – £1.07p – track #2 http://bit.ly/ratm-we7
Also, give £1 to Shelter if you can http://www.justgiving.com/ratm4xmas/
Yes, we will probably lose this battle, but not without a godsdamn fight.
Edit: Had a long discussion with my cousin about this, he’s in the same camp I was in last year, regarding the whole giving money to a major label thing, but at this stage that war has been lost. His position is, as mine usually is, 100% against this. But I don’t think the money is the issue this time, but the message. I know last year people claimed it was about that, but it was the same song, and it was split across two earlier versions of it. This time there seems to have emerged, by accident, one song, a protest song then, retooled as a protest song now. Is this a futile gesture? Yes and no. Sure you’re lining the same label with money, but this is a song without promotion, available in almost the same places as the XFactor song, that could actually pull this off. And besides, saying “oh it’s the same label” is something of a bullshit argument at this stage because the big labels own pretty much everything that’s ever going to be in the charts. There’s almost no way around it, now that they’ve consolidated, the few independent labels that are around, they’re so far on the fringes you’re not going to find a song like Killing in the Name with a proven popular mainstream track record that’ll make this strategy effective.
Does the Christmas #1 mean anything in real world terms? To Rage Against the Machine? No. But it clearly means something to Simon Cowell, and to the commercial music industry. So in this case I say that the ends might well justify the means, that to fight this system you have to work within this system, and use their own weapons against them. This wouldn’t work with Sunn O))) or with Faith No More, but it might just work with Rage Against the Machine.
Also to clarify, I’m saying you should totally do this. Me, I’m not going to. Why? Because I don’t buy single songs, and I certainly don’t buy (nor do I pirate) downloads. But those of you who operate in that spectrum, who get music in that way, you guys totally should. Yeah. Listen to me… Man, that’s my whole argument flown out the window. Still, do it man. It’ll be awesome.
Well, the site was down for a while there, my hosts had a catastrophic failure on the server the site was on. Been moved to a different server.
Bunch of stuff in the pipeline, half-finished, somewhat hampered by my day-by-day search for employment. All these ads that read “No experience necessary as full training will be given”, what they really mean is “We’re pretending no experience is necessary to increase the volume of applicants, but we do of course eliminate those with no experience because we’re not idiots”.
Anyway, onward and upward. Selling some stuff on eBay. Just sold four guitar pedals. The only one I’ll really miss is the Feedbacker, but it’s not like I really used the thing with any great regularity. In fact, I’m just about to leave to go post two of the pedals. Might not go to the local post-office though, as the staff there are thickly-accented Indian-subcontinental Asians who I cannot understand, and who cannot understand me, filling the conversation with lots of “Sorry?” and “what?” etc. Also, it’s closed.
Speaking of racism, there’s some posters up by in Cessnock for “Love Music, Hate Racism” which got me thinking what if there was “Hate Music, Love Racism”. Seems to me like you’re not going to trick people who like music into not being racists – the two don’t seem mutually exclusive.
Anyway, enough of that crap.
I’m 13,000 words into Nanowrimo09 by the way, but I’d hesitate to call whatever it is I’m writing a novel.
So, I just spent the afternoon installing Windows 7, and then most of the evening restoring my programs.
The installation was painless and alarmingly swift (30 minutes at most), and despite claiming to be a Clean Install, what it actually did was dump all the Windows Vista settings, User data and installed programs into a folder called Windows.old. Handy, except of course I had already spent some time copying that stuff to another drive – so in actual fact I was overprepared.
I opted for the 64 bit version, which is proving a little bit trickier than the 32 bit would have been. Only a couple of apps I use don’t yet run in 64 bit Windows, although a great deal more only run 32 bit versions. For some reason Windows has a seperate program files folder for those 86x programs, which is kind of clunky, but a fair trade off. This is really year 0 for 64 bit Windows though – seeing as this is the first version of Windows to ship with both 32 and 64 bits in the same box – so it’ll take a while before everything migrates. I’m happy to be an early adopter on this one because I’ll be upgrading to 4GB of RAM next year.
I: Dead Leaves
Lo I was dragged beneath the Earth
By a cloud of smoke and chains
Tumbled a name from Her tongue
Yet I followed her beyond the trees
Trod light upon the eaves
For dead leaves make Yuletide wreathes
And prison designs panopticon tide
‘Neath Steradian shadow of the sun
Collapsed upon ye Pylon Field
Prison designs panopticon tide
Follow her out to a grave
Collapsed upon ye Pylon Field
For so long now deprived of light
With a heavy clattering of bells
Wrung the rain from His sky
II: October
Wheels of the bicycle
Buried in rust still
Carried the dust
Of an October wire
With wool and blood
Well, some asshole who lives in my building seems to have run their car into my parked bike – which was locked, against a railing, in a spot only used for bikes, in our building’s “secure” carpark – and bent the back wheel.
Fucking A. Looks like a new wheel costs £50-£100 for a cheap one, and this added to the theft of my lights and pump earlier in the year, kind of puts me off the idea of owning a bike in Glasgow. Fuck this city.
EDIT: On further inspection, the front derailleur is broken too, great. There’s another bike out there with a much more deformed front wheel that has been there since I moved in, so I doubt anyone’s going to own up.