nastybun

Dear reader.. apologies for the lack of posting lately, I know you’re feeling left out.. but tough. Bwahaha.

Anyway to make up for it, let me direct you to some good tunes. First of all there’s She, who is a Polish artist living in Sweden.. as they do. It’s glitchy, chiptuney electro stuff that’s a lot of fun. It’s free to download from that link there too, so no excuses.. go check it out. Highlighs are Coloris and Destination Luna4 (both off the Coloris album). The other is Ladyhawke, whom I bought today. It’s proficient dancey tunes, quite fun to hear and the cover art for the CD is excellent. Unfortunately either the website sucks, or it’s my PC being shite. Most likely the latter, so check it out and let me know if it’s tops. Highlights off the album are My Delirium and Love Don’t Live Here.

I’ve being playing through GTA 4 again lately. It brought to mind the censorship issues that gamers here in Australia face, as the game had to be edited before it could attain rating and therefore be able to be sold and also to run in consoles. Console manufactureres won’t allow unrated (or in the US, AO rated) games to run, and also it’s illegal to sell unrated games. The stumbling block is that the OFLC doesn’t have a rating above MA15+, so anything that would normally be considered an R18+ thing just isn’t allowed in games. This is ridiculous for a number of reasons, one of which being that the average age of a gamer is about 30. I’m all for keeping inappropriate material away from the kiddies, but I believe that’s a job for the parents. It’s not hard to achieve control over what they’re playing, consoles have parental lockout controls for that very reason that will either prevent a game from playing or have it run in a self censored mode that will remove the more mature content from the experience. The most aggravating thing about the issue are the arguments that people come up with against changing the situation. One I’ve heard rather often is ‘well, the people who want to get around the censorship will do it anyway, so it’s fine the way it is’. Essentially, they’re condoning piracy. This is obviously stupid.

Not as stupid however as situation all this achieves. The main cut from GTA 4 is that you can no longer pull over and pick up a prostitute, watch your car rock from side to side for a moment and end up with full health. You can still shoot people in the face, run them over and have shootouts with the police. You can still take part in street races, drive home drunk and cause general mayhem in the city. Surely, if watching a car rocking from side to side is so bad then the rest of the stuff should be kept from impressionable youth. If there was an R18+ category for the game and others like it, then it would actually be easier to keep the nastiness away from the poor kiddies and have them grow up uncorrupted by the evils of videogaming. The issue’s not about to go away anytime soon either, though what’s more likely to happen is publishers just won’t bother to release games here (Sega have already stated that the lukewarmly anticipated Wii game Mad World won’t be edited for release in countries with stupid censorship issues), thereby ensuring more and more people resort to piracy. It’s all very very silly.

While I was in town today I also bought Fable 2… I’ll let you know how it is.

The correct response to the Irish greeting ‘top of the morning to you’ is ‘and the rest of the day to yourself’.

I wonder if any Irish people even use that anymore…

Welcome to the official trailer for the reinvention of Apogee. You may remember them from such classics as Commander Keen, Rise of the Triad, and of course Duke Nukem. You, my reader, may remember that before Duke Nukem 3D came out in 1996 there were two 2D Duke Nukem games. They were good, I enjoyed them thoroughly. Recently, those that be have announced that Apogee as a brand is back (they have existed in the public eye as 3D Realms since the late 90s) and as a major release to wow the world, they’ve announced some new Duke Nukem games for the DS! Wow! Remember how awesome they were damn near fifteen years ago? This’ll be brilliant! Once this takes off, we may even have some new Commander Keen games! How brilliant will that be?! Never mind that they’ve been ‘making’ a new Duke Nukem game since 1997. Duke Nukem Forever (possibly a pisstake title?) has been ‘in development’ for ELEVEN YEARS. I could make a game in that long, and I’m useless with anything like that. Still, this new Duke Nukem title must be being created by different people who have nothing to do with the team who have obviously been hard at work for ELEVEN YEARS cranking out… well, apparently some people have seen it running. Nothing official worth noting though. Still, the new trilogy (it’s traditional.. games from fifteen years ago came in episodes….) has a trailer! Check it out!

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING THAT BAD EVER IN YOUR LIFE. HOLY FUCKING SHIT BATMAN! ‘Scuse me if not adding a break has ruined how astoundingly bad that was, but if you’ve read to here and haven’t watch at least the first 30 seconds of it, please just watch it that far. There are no words for how amateur it is. There are vids on youtube made by mentally challenged pygmy lemmings (no offence meant) that are far better than that. People with no limbs could create something approaching Cannes brilliance compared to that. My scalp has exuded… well, you get the picture. The voice clips, the fonts, the circular ‘OMFG RADIATION’ logo, images of Duke.. probably all the rest of the assets.. are from Duke Nuken 3D (or previous Duke Nukem games)bumph. From, at the latest, 1996. In videogame terms… well, lets say that Noah wouldn’t have bothered allowing that onto the ark. And then there’s the total rubbishness of how all the assets were used. If it wasn’t for the fact that this was an official video shown at E3, I’d have written it off as a pisstake. In fact.. a pisstake couldn’t have been that bad. It would have been written off as a mentally challenged limbless pygmy lemming who is a fan of the original Duke Nukem 3D wanting to make a case for it appearing on XBLA (there’s a rumour that that may happen.. it was fun back in the day.. may be worth a shot again) and failing miserably. There is no stating how bad that video is. I cannot imagine someone stepping back and thinking ‘Yea, I’ve created something that’ll really make people want to purchase this brilliance. This oughta generate massive interest in this title.’ Good god I hope anyone who had anything to do with the creation and approval process of that thing has been fired. From a cannon. Into a very very solid wall. And then incinerated for good measure. I’m just… there’s not words… yea. You get me.

On the plus side, we’re getting a new Wolfenstein game. Mmm.

Orright, innit, insofar as hello, whatup, sandwiches.

I just ate some lovely spicy pasta what I did make the sauce for. Next time you make pasta sauce/nachos/chunky mincey stuff hunt down some (malaysian) sambal balado, in hot guise, and put in 2/3s of the jar. Dayam that’s tasty. Ugh. Groinal thrusting ensues. Hwhuh.

Whomsoever it is that engineers light fittings is a sadistic prick who gets off on making life difficult for others. Especially the domed ones that are pretty much flush with the ceiling. I have one here that blew, obviously it’s the main light of the four that are in my little joint, and it took me three separate attempts over three days to uncover the mysteries surrounding the inner workings of the mythical systems that retain that thrice damned glass dome that contains the light emmiting bulb which sustains my megre eyesight whilst sitting here in the dim corner of my pad. Turns out that one of the three retaining hasps is spring loaded, allowing me to yank it outwards, barely giving me enough room once the recalcitrant arm has moved to remove the cover. Shame that initial explorations by nimble fingers suggested a nut/bolt retaining system resulting in time wasting with sockets that are all too large and pliers that won’t fit between the dome and the ceiling to manipulate the fanciful hardware, and the only personal height elevation device I have is the dodgy as all hell plastic stool that seems to have been a free gift with the joint. (I found it in the fridge nook once I rented the place…) I’m sure you can now imagine the frustration I have towards light fittings now, and the elation I felt once besting the Laytonian puzzle presented to me by said fitting. Now, considering the fact that I have a spare bulb all ready and waiting due to the fact that I purchased a twin pack o’ light bulbs to ensure a lighted kitchen upon moving in, I should be in a position to beam wond’rous light upon all that I shift to ‘neath heinous light fitting. Not so! Due to hated fuckwittery, the light fittings in the kitchen and bathroom are bayonets yet the other two are screw fittings! Fie! I have but four ceiling lights in my humble abode, not a hard task to ensure compatibility ‘tween such units, yet the pettyness of idiots has ensured I go another night without the advantage of complete perception. I put it to you, light fittings are the realm of sadists and arseholes.

Turns out a pair of worn out thongs (footwear) are not the best things to go running in Who’da thunk it?! Still, due to my amazing adaptability, I managed to do it without damaging myself. If anyone asked, I’m brilliant. And that’s important.

Today we went on a guided foodish tour of Cabramatta. This comprised of a super tasty Vietnamese luncheon and wandering past various food shoppes. We were also assured of being offered drugs (decline, the quality is poor and prices high…) and one of our number being stabbed. Neither occured, which was of great disappointment. I feel we missed out on the full cultural experience on offer from our destination, and I hope that next time our hosts can organise the locals to come out and really show their full worth. Still, I’m told the next food related jaunt will be here in Balmain, which means it’s coffee, coffee and coffee to start with, followed by the 13 pubs that are within staggering distance of my place here. Should be a good day…

I’ve been watching a lot of Scrapheap Challenge lately, which makes me feel a lot happier with being a part of the human race. Teams of people who can create, engineer and construct things from crap to acheive targets all within 10(ish) hours. Massive <3 to thems, they is the peoples what are awesomes. Innit. Watch it, anyway. To the aussies, ABC2, 6:30 every day (weekends included). To the rest… if you can’t find them, lemmie know. I can provide if required.

Please look at this picture. Is that not the most amazing car interior you’ve ever seen. It has amazing exposed gear linkages, an astounding steering wheel, puffy smoking jacket inserts in the panels, and it’s just has this presence that makes it so brilliantly unique. And before you say ‘come on, that’s ridiculous, no car needs an inside like that’ please remember that this is from a Spyker C8, a Dutch supercar. Something to be seen in. I reckon that if you were in the line outside some exclusive nightclub being denied entry for four hours, you wouldn’t mind so much when some random bloke and is stunning bird (or the other way around) pulled up in one of them and wandered straight in. You’d reckon, if you were the type of person who’d consider standing in a huge line a wonderful way to spend an evening, that these are people who deserve to wander straight in. You’d be happy to be held up. You’d merely want to be them. Wonderful.

Please now see Exhibit B. Then pull out to see that it’s in an ‘SUV’ (I’ve always hated that idea). Techincally those links are to the concept, but if you head to the main Spyker page and find the D8 Peking to Paris you’ll see that it’s the same as the concept, only instead of vaguely inoffencive beige, it’s horribly vulgar orange. Ugh. I realise that these guys are Dutch and as such I’m contractually obliged to infer that they were influenced by some form of illicit substance at the time of designing it, but still.. whiskey tango foxtrot. Is that not the most ridiculous and vulgar interior to a car that you have ever seen? Stupid shiny chrome everywhere, only four seats possible due to the ridiculousness of it all, scaffolding to hold the roof up… If someone showed up to the aformentioned nightclub in this Spyker, you’d run over and punch him in the face. Hell, if Ghandi rocked up in one of these you’d punch him in the face. No question, he’d be in hospital shortly after exiting the vehicle. And no jury in the world would convict you. It’s ridiculous! We all know that these luxo SUV things are pointless, but this one really takes the cake.. and in the case my friends, the cake exists in all it’s moist, tasty goodness.

Apparently the guy that started the new Spyker (the brand originated in the very early 1900s) left due mainly due to the D8 SUV model. I’m with him. In all aspects C8 (the supercar awesome model) I’m with them, but the D8 should be spurned more than any other car available today. By all means spit on X5s, MLs, Q7s, all of those.. but scar and slash and D8 that you may see. Please, for the good of taste.

So whomsoever is in charge of these things here has decided to shift the end of daylight savings from last sunday to this sunday. This seems like a small issue, right? You just wait another week before shifting your clocks back. Not so! For the professional geek such as myself, this poses a myriad of problems. Lets face it, devices that display the time that need manual adjustment are so last century. Your computer clock, any modern phone clock, media devices, GPS device, fancy watches.. with all of these things, you tell it where you are (or it just knows in some cases) and it automagically updates your clock. Brilliant! It has ESP! Taste the marvel of the future! Unfortunately, these devices work from a timetable of changes that’s stored internally. It hits last sunday and knows that it’s time to change back an hour. Wonderful! Until that is.. they change the rules. At that point, all these files need updating. Now some of your devices will update themselves, a la your PC. Other devices may have a patch available from the manufacturer, but it’s more than likely that they manufacturer doesn’t know about the change, or just can’t be bothered releasing an update for a mere week’s difference. Except that I believe this is a permanent change, so these devices may permanently be a week out. Nice! It also means a hell of a lot of manual changes to things for the professional geeks out there who are supporting back-end servers that don’t update themselves, users with calendars that are all out of whack for a week because not everyone in the city has the same patches installed, and CEOs who whine super loudly about the slightest IT issue because they’re a pain in the arse. All this because someone somewhere decided that we need a week’s more DST.

Spare a thought for we who went through the same issues in Perth when the decided to introduce DST. A whole summer of messed up times, calendars and devices with no official fixes, and missives/appointments flying this way and that having hours added and removed from them at every step. I’m pretty sure no meeting had all participants show up on time that whole summer.

It also ends up that my dodgy old mobile is actually better off than my shiny new one, because at least it can display the correct time this week without intervention.

It’s past 1am on a Monday night, and someone nearby has decided that now is a great time to start listening to techno at loud enough volumes to get me up and complaining about it on the internet. Not loud enough that it would wake me if I was actually able to sleep, but far too loud for people who should be allowed to participate in society. These are the people who should be strung up in front of real people, so we can flay them. If I were in charge, I’d set that in motion. I reckon I could drum up enough support to make it happen. Or at the very least we could designate certain suburbs for these demi-people and fence them off from the rest of us. They’d only be allowed back out if they could pass some sort of hearing, and on the proviso that they where a collar with some C4 in it so I could deal with them remotely if they ever crossed me again.

I think that’s fair… readers? Would you support me?