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Rants: Where to buy music where the buying doesn't suck?
Wed, 20 Sep 2006

Say you're in the market for some new music (or even old music) and are too lazy to support mom and pop or The Man to head out to the strip-mall to do the deed. I admit -- for books and music where the pricetag is small and the shipping is either free or non-existant, I'll buy online. I really like to support locals, support Canada, all that.. but when it comes down to it, I end up shopping online since its just so bloody convenient (and I'd be a hippocrit if I didn't, seeing as I sell stuff online.) So, if we take it as given you're going to purchase online - where can you do it that it doesn't just suck?

Edit: see below

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Rants: The gorramn spammers must be stopped!
Tue, 19 Sep 2006

Those bastards have done it again! Aaargh!

Six months or a year ago I was pretty annoyed when my blog here started to get over-run with spam -- automated faked replies to my entries; comments that were essentially adverts to some random site loaded with viruses and such. Certainly they offered nothing of value but more to point -- they occupied my resources for their purposes and violated my conditions of use... of common decency. Fine, sobeit -- the blog software I use is convenient for me but not so well protected against such attacks so as with all things done out of generousity, bastards-of-the-world would destroy it. Rather than invest time ot deal with it I just removed the comment system and put links to LJ .. sucks, but what can you do?

Well, the bastards have gone and done it again!

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Entertainment: Video Games Live 2006
Mon, 18 Sep 2006

I wasn't able to attend the Video Games Live music show, but a friend did; he mailed out an account that I thought was so much fun I had to repost it here (with his permission.) Read on for Ian's account!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006: Video Games Live at Massey Hall

My wife and I saw "Video Games Live" at Massey Hall in Toronto on Friday September 1. The basic premise of the show is a having a local orchestra (mostly members of the TSO) play music from popular video games, synchronized to footage from said games.

The show was amazing. The orchestra sounded great and the hosts / video game composers Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico (from the video game television show Electric Playground) made the evening a lot of fun.

The way that the live music was synchronized to video segments from the games was really effective.

I really enjoyed the Classic Gaming medley, which opened the show. It included orchestral interpretations of sound effects and music from Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command, Defender, Tempest (Yay!), Centipede, Robotron 2084, Joust, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Dragon's Lair, Gauntlet, Rastan and Outrun.

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Gaming: A couple quick Sony PSP game reviews, posed as haiku
Mon, 18 Sep 2006

Perhaps I'm onto something here - that all reviews should be preceeded by a summary haiku? After reading on, there will be a resoundingh No! I am sure..

Read on for quickie reviews of Bomberman and Ultimate Ghouls and Ghosts for the Sony PSP.

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Paranoia: Right click -> Revolution!
Mon, 18 Sep 2006

Every few months you hear another odd story about the friendly law enforcement in the UK with its streetcorner cameras that monitor the average joe. One hopes they actually use them to catch a pickpocket once in awhile. Theres also this bumf of late about the US spying upon and wiretapping its own citizens, and of course all the fun conspiracy theories about Bush Jr. getting into office. And now good ol' former Calculator-maker HP spying on its own employees. Not to mention RFID tags on everything, without even the decency to encrypt their data...

Whats next -- cameras in ATMs?

Once in awhile I sit back and mull it over and think about V for Vendetta and get all paranoid; when did so many parts of the world begin to slide into conservative theological fascist domains?

I mean, haven't they nursed at the teat of Sid Meiers enough to know better?

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Personal: On the occasion of a serious thought
Sun, 03 Sep 2006

It is amusing to note how irrelevent so many of our daily thoughts are; what time to get up today? whats on the tube tonight? where am I going to lunch today? While vital to know where you're going to dine, its not really going to make a long term impact. Well, unless the fajitas are _that_ delicious.

Being so early in the pregnancy means it is still very surreal to us - we can't really see the little guy (for sake of arugment we call him 'guy' but we do not know) nor hear him with the shiny new head-paining stethoscope I picked up from Active Surplus, nor does my wife throw up every night or after every meal like my brother in laws unfortunate wife. We just hope he's still in there growing away. Its very worrysome, but we'll be visiting the doc again in a week or two to get another ultrasound and see the little gaffer moving around in real time fuzzovision. We've done an ultrasound before to make sure everything was in the right place, and thats where the thoughts got serious, quick. Serious to us, anyway. But I did see, in a quick glimpse that the little guy had 4 appendages, and got to say "Hello" to the cathode-ray-baby. I'll remember that moment.

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Personal: Ahright, so I'm gonna be a dad!
Sat, 02 Sep 2006

Disclaimer: I hereby reserve the right to be dopey and trite; if you're only interested in the GP2X or PSP or my bitching about government and people, feel free to just ignore the entire Personal section of the blog. Consider yourself warning ;)

So far along I've been hesitant to go on about personal things - really while I like to think I'm an ever happy and open individual in The Real .. when it comes to the Intertube I've always been friendly but a little unrevealing. When you write some fifty-thousand-odd support emails (no joke!), you keep a certain.. voice. But here, dear reader, I will expose a few thoughts I've been holding for a time.

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