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Music: Death of the Back Catalog; take that Sony, BMG.
Sat, 31 Dec 2005

(OKay, maybe, 'take that artist estates' too)

My observation of the day (besides the glorious beautiful full day of snow we've gotten; bring it on Mother Nature - make us remember why we're alive!) is that due to digital music (mp3s etc) and fat hard drives, we're going to be buying (re-buying) less old or back catalogue music. I'm sure the music industry has loved every time we've rebought our favourites - how many times has each Beatles track been sold to each Beatles fan? LP? casette? CD? mp3? Same for the movie and television industry.. but my friends, times are a'changin'. As hard drives get bigger and backup systems become more automagic.. we won't lose music. We'll keep it forever, and skimp on the $1/per/listen the industry will want. We'll try like hell to keep things sane and not just-so for the maximized business models.

Back catalogue sales are about to pay. Good riddance.

[ Category: / entertainment / music ] [link] [Comments]

Cinema: Shaun of the Dead
Sat, 31 Dec 2005

Well, just having watched the film I don't know what to say. So I'll say this: Holy crap! Its funny, well written and witty and well .. a movie about a pubbie UK loser getting dumped by his girl and then fighting off zombies to save his mum can't be bad, right?

Theres some great moments when they just start figuring out theres zombies in the world and they start throwing household rubbish at one to get rid of him; after running out of that, they fetch more dangerous items than beer cans and out comes the cricket bat -- serious stuff. Can't forget them tossing record albums either.. but being careful not to toss out the classics, just the Dire Straights and Sade.

Great freaking film.

[ Category: / entertainment / cinema ] [link] [Comments]

Gaming: Don't make us manage inventory. Its not fun, or clever.
Thu, 29 Dec 2005

If I don't post again (or even if I do) - Happy New Year!

Its been a few blissful days off for the holidays and I've managed to avoid using a computer much of the time - three entire days in a row without using one at all! - and spending much quality time with my wife. Really, these sorts of days will really be missed. I need another holiday already. Anyway, tomorrow is back to the grind for an entire day before the weekend rescues me. Woe.

Aside from straightening up around the house and visiting family and such, I've done a little gaming; as mentioned before theres been plenty of thievering in Thief II (and much looking about for Thief III at the store to no avail; no SOCOM-PSP either.), but I thought I'd pick up Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn again for the night. You see, this very fine game came out in 2002 if memory serves though I didn't play it then; in 2003 I gave it a whirl and battled through the first part of the game (Irenicus Dungeon for those in the know.) I got busy or lost interest and time passed and in 2004 I started over and again worked through the dungeon.. and got busy or lost interest again. Well, tonight I thought hell - a fine game - why not pick up where I left off and maybe see if I can remember anything at all about what was going on and start her up again?

Continues..

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Gaming: Thief2x .. through the Looking Glass
Fri, 23 Dec 2005

Merry Christmas!

Gamers should be at least aware of the original Thief, released back in 1998 by Looking Glass Studios (the same development house who produced the classic System Shock series.) The game was quite popular and spawned a sequal - Thief II - a couple of years later; it performed fairly well in the market though Looking Glass Studious approach to development (taking on a half dozen projects at once) was too much to sustain and so the studio had to close its doors; I only found out recently that Ion Storm has produced a Thief 3, so I'll be checking that out very soon ;)

On Thief I - The Dark Project, circa 1998

I can almost call this retro-gaming :)

Thief (and perhaps Metal Gear Solid to some extent) inspired the entire Sneaker-FPS genre; in Thief I - The Dark Project, the player is instructed to slip through various levels and picking up various specific objects, as well as pocketing a certain level of coin for himself.. all the while not being allowed to kill anything. (Well, you can set it up to let you kill enemies, but the spirit and design of the game is to make it harder to do so.. bodies lieing around will certainly draw attention to an invader!) The player is weak in physical combat (sword fights can be done, but aren't really sensible), but is dangerous in the darkness and is equipped with various tools appropriate to the tasks .. arrows with water-bulbs on the tip to knock out torches, arrows with rope attached for making impromptu ladders, a cudgel for knocking a guard out. Good things. Fun things. And, best of all .. its a slow paced strategy game needing a bit of sneaking and timing. Quake 3 it was not.

Continues..

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Phil: Resolutions for the New Year
Wed, 21 Dec 2005

Making a promise to ones self is a common routine for a lot of us at New Years; I usually make simple ones that are easy to follow through and are quickly forgotten. This year I'll make a couple and try to fulfill them - an honest effort, for personal goals.. not company goals or some lofty thing.. something for me. A tall order however, to come up with guidelines sensible and not cheesie - none of this "Get rich", "grow a third arm" or "get taller" silliness.

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[ Category: / day_by_day / philosophy ] [link] [Comments]

Quotes: From the immortal mouth of Zack Brannigan
Wed, 21 Dec 2005

"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
- Zack Brannigan, Futurama

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Stage Left: The Passion of the Dines
Tue, 20 Dec 2005

The loading door rolls open. "Makes too much noise.." Dines thinks to himself, and the shuffling of nearby feat seems to agree. Jumping down to the blacktop, he appears sweating and grimy into the light; he rolls to the side and pulls down the metal door quickly and shields his eyes from the burning sun. Life in the inside dulls the tolerance. Bullets on steel ring and the rolling door pocks up. Dines bolts down the alleyway towards a public daycare hoping the A*Stream Commandos won't steep so low as to fire there. He weaves left, then right and catches a few wingers before realizing the error of his ways.

"Walk straight old man" he whispers to himself. "Cheap firearms can't fire straight... walk it out."

Dines straightens his chimpleather and walks, a free man. "Can't even fire someone right."

[ Category: / day_by_day / stage_left ] [link] [Comments]

Comics: Are these the end or beginning of days?
Tue, 20 Dec 2005

It is difficult to post to a blog in the runners-up days before Christmas without revealing ones recent where-abouts to a feisty and cunning wife, so instead I'll post about a recent conversation I had with some shopkeeps.

Comic stores are an interesting den; sometimes they're not more than hole-the-wall jernts with a few racks of goods, while other times they're larger establishments featuring figures and other tie-ins - video and anime, computer or tabletop games (RPGs!), you name it. Cool stuff (if you consider the Dungeon Master's Guide cool stuff, like I do.) You'll note that all of these things are the sorts of activites that attract geeks and obsessives so you just know that the shops are neat places for High Nerding. Anyway, these shops tend to be owned by real humans .. individuals. There are no big box malls running these places.. they just don't make enough money and so somehow remain the grit in the book industry. Nice.

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[ Category: / arts / comics ] [link] [Comments]

Comms: Signature Lines Over Time
Sun, 18 Dec 2005

Over dinner tonight my wife and I were reminiscing the old times -- you know, the sorts of trouble we'd gotten into when we were young idiots in school. (Sometimes I wonder wherever did those people go? When you're young and foolish you'll do impulsive crazy things and get into all sorts of trouble. If you dig deep inside, beneath that serpent-like necktie and into your soul, will you reach that core of anti-responsibility we all so fondly remember having while hoping our offspring will never show such insanity? Hell, next time you're at Tim Hortons ask for the Extra Fat Full-Caffeine instead of the Low-Fat Decaf - will they just melt some butter into your coffee?) I digress..

I got to thinking about some old postings I'd made to Usenet and upon the very early web, and in email and on BBSes. What signature-lines did I use in them? What watermark did I leave in every fledgling 386BSD or C++ posting? (A signature or sig-line is the post-text that is automatically appended to a communicee and is usually used to announce the name of the poster, their contact info or perhaps some particularly non-funny in-joke or quote.) Well my friends, I was there. I warlorded (giant siglines) and showed my geekly nature with obscure references or heavy music quotes. I championed the cause, and to this day I have some fear and guilt that perhaps I, in the late 1980's, sparked the 'l337 sp34k' on Commodore 64 BBSes. Anyway, here goes - in the name of shamelessly embarassing myself publicly on the web (what could possibly go wrong!) I hereby list of a bunch of my old siglines while listening to Rush (Red Barchetta, I'm so with you!) and drinking Dr. Pepper. I used to have a (shell)script rotate through siglines once upon a time, so I know theres a bunch more lurking in long lost emails but the following are some sigs I had lieing around in backups or found through the magic of Usenet archives in Google-Groups.

Heres a cross section of the anger-transformed-to-romance-to-uber-geek that is me. Someday I'll dig out my email backups and fill it in more...

Man, so many memories while searching through the usenet; I really must crack out Wizardry 7 and Thief again; hell with it, I'll go buy Civilization IV instead.

Current (latter half of 2005) 
--
If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.

Sometime in 2005 
--
"Terrorists can attack our freedom, but only Congress can destroy it."

2002-2005 
--
"Have you played Atari today?"

1998-2001 
--
"It's murder out there. You can't even travel around in your own micro
circuits without permission from 'Master Control Program'. I mean,
sending *ME* down here to play games.... Who does he calculate he is?"
-- Peter Jurasik as Crom, _Tron_

1998 - wow, what a Lisp nerd I was. 
--
"I'm CONSING NOW!" "Nature is for weenies." -- Hozhead

1995 
--
 SLvH            |  "Good - bad - I'm the guy with the gun."
 Jeff Mitchell   |  "Hail to the king, baby."
 skeezix@io.org  |                   -- Bruce Campbell, Armies of Darkness

1994-1995 
.------------.    Skeezix and Ladynigh, entwined forever since July 1, 1994.
|_      __=--'
  )    (          "The Deliverator belongs to an elite order ... Those
 '------'          burger flippers might have better life expectancy, but
 skeezix@acm.org   what kind of life is it anyway" -- Neal Stephenson

1994 - "SLvH" - Skeezix Ladyfingers von Humphries 
--
 SLvH            |  "Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, you
 Jeff Mitchell   |   stupid ignorant ugly American death-sucker."
 skeezix@io.org  |                               -- William S. Burroughs, Sr.

1994 - I was drawing "NIN" (Nine Inch Nails) on my arms with a thick marker 
--
 SLvH            |  "need you; dream you; find you; taste you; fuck you;
 Jeff Mitchell   |   use you; scar you; break you; lose me; hate me;
 skeezix@io.org  |   smash me; erase me." - "eraser", Trent Reznor (NIN)

1993 - When I had a 386DX40 with 8MB of RAM, playing through Sirtech's Wizardry 7 
--
SLvH            |  "Only squids can be tranced." - Jack Deth, "Trancers"
Jeff Mitchell   |  "No matter how powerful the wizard, a dagger between
skeezix@io.org  |  the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style."

[ Category: / technology / communication ] [link] [Comments]

Editors: Emacs is the Only OS You Need
Mon, 12 Dec 2005

Just stumbled across this quote from the eminent science fiction author Neal Stephenson about my preferred text editor - Emacs. I've read this before, but it just makes me hyperventilate.

I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor. It was created by Richard Stallman; enough said. It is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful. It is colossal, and yet it only edits straight ASCII text files, which is to say, no fonts, no boldface, no underlining. In other words, the engineer-hours that, in the case of Microsoft Word, were devoted to features like mail merge, and the ability to embed feature-length motion pictures in corporate memoranda, were, in the case of emacs, focused with maniacal intensity on the deceptively simple-seeming problem of editing text. If you are a professional writer--i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted and printed--emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish.

For those non-computer-science folks, Emacs is a text editor; its not really easy to use, and its not for things like fonts or underlining .. it just does text. Flexible beyond belief, to the point where many people jokingly refer to it as an operating system (though it lacks threading :P) Other modern editors and environments are more fancy with all sorts of magic voodoo going on, but they still generally are playing catch up in terms of Pure Editing Power.

[ Category: / technology / editors ] [link] [Comments]

TV: /me Likes the Humans
Sun, 11 Dec 2005

Tonight is another finale for Survivor and its not the first time I've observed that the participants look far better when out in the jungle and starving than they do all fattened up and with make-up. Colby from way back looked the Cowboy with a gruff beard but once back in society he cleaned up into some metrosexual thing. The women in this current Survivor (Survivor: Alabama or whatever it is) just come off all Tammy-Fay - they looked good on the island but now just don't look so .. attractive, if I can say that. Now, perhaps its just these folks not being photogenic, the effect of television on their image, general nervousness from being on TV (though I doubt this as they've been parading in front of cameras for months now), lack of TV make-up skills, my lack of sleep as usual, or just the shock of the transition from seeing them in previous episodes to this. Or any number of factors. Or more likely, perhaps its just people look better in a more natural state - no make-up, a little starved and doing some exercise for a change.

Yes, I realize admitting that I half-watch Survivor has cost me something ;)

[ Category: / entertainment / television ] [link] [Comments]

Lit: Retrogamer Returns from the Dead
Tue, 06 Dec 2005

You might remember from an earlier post of mine that the much adored Retro Gamer magazine went out of business; more specifically, Live Publishing went bust due to losses against numerous magazines despite RG itself being a money maker. Well, like the content it describes, Retro Gamer is making a comeback.

Although the new company has nothing to do with Live Publishing, the new boys are trying to get back their former customers - a wise plan; how many people were in the same boat as I.. renewing just before Live unknowingly tanked? Being out an entire years sub-money wasn't really cool, so getting a free 3 copies of the new rag means I'll pay attention. If this first new issue (issue 19) is anything to go by .. I may well be a subscriber again.

I've not had this issue long enough to make good commentary (notice a trend in this blog yet?), but it looks sharp and professional, yet maintains its retro-cuteness -- lots of big glossy photos of R-Type, Ms. Pacman, Leisure Suit Larry.. whats not to love? I even hear they'll not be so UK-oriented this time around.

Loverly.

[ Category: / arts / literature ] [link] [Comments]

Hardware: Factors in Buying a Laptop
Mon, 05 Dec 2005

We're considering obtaining a laptop over the holidays. Its all about making my wife's life a little easier .. catch a DVD while the TV is busy or do some writing / organizing / development without hiding away in a cramped office. Why come home from work, to work? Whats interesting about the experience are her requirements for the prospective machine and how they differ from mine. She's a developer as well and knows her gear, but also knows I'll worry about it and cuts in from a whole other plane.

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Advice: Death From Above, or Thanking Someone From the Past
Thu, 01 Dec 2005

Be warning, I'm deathly-tired and unable to type ;)

A good friend (and a good man, chum) just scored a short term contract on the side of his day gig; a little cash infusion can't be a bad thing, and I'm sure its a big boost to the old ego. But it reminded me of something..

Years ago (long years, too) I landed a job while still wet behind the ears and a tad nervous; anyway, when I got home, a friend was there. Well, not so much a friend as an acquaintance I hated much of the time, but who was a good hearted jerk of a man the rest of the time :) I remember the conversation going something like this...

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