Planet Sillicon

I just watched the final Sopranoes episode…

By blog on Apr. 14, 2009.

… and I can’t say that I am impressed. I mean what the heck was that?

Please note, there will be spoilers so if you have taken a strangely long time to see this final episode like I have, you might want to stop here.

The last few episodes leading up to the finale were very intense. I enjoyed seeing all the conflicts coming to a head, even if I didn’t like seeing Bobby and Sil get shot. But the finale, it was… well very unsatisfying, and I am not the only one to think so. After it aired in the US, there was a great amount of anger from fans who felt gypped by the ending, but then you had the other camp who appreciated it for its artistic merit. That David Chase, the show’s creator, left it up to us, or left clues in there for us.

Honestly, I understand that there could be a heck of a lot of symbolism littered throughout the show, from the cat representing Schrodinger’s cat, to the fact that Tony eats an orange early on in the show possibly being a reference to the orange equaling death in the Godfather, to some people hypothosising that Tony is actually dead at the beginning of the show – hence the moment of silence on the bed that suddenly has white sheets – and the rest is his death dream… the list goes on!

I have meandered my way around the web and the theory that stands out the most is that Tony is shot in the end. That, as Bobby told him earlier, you never hear it coming, and that the orange cat was indeed a bad omen, as Paulie insisted, and its fixation on death – a death to be laid solely at the feet of Tony, mind you – was a warning of what was to come.

There is also a rumor that a movie may be in the works, however Chase said it isn’t something being planned at this stage, something for which I am glad really. So far, TV to movie adaptations are by and large pretty crap.

So… I don’t like the ending, I really don’t. Its like when you watch No Country for Old Men, you are left in the end feeling very angry and dissatisfied, in spite of completely understanding the meaning and intention of the ending, you are, nonetheless, looking for entertainment, and it is not entertaining to watch the scumbag-sociopath win. Likewise, it is very damn unsatisfying to watch an entire series – especially as a box set of DVDs so you see them all within a fortnight – to at the end be given this vague subtle arthouse ending.

… and I can’t say that I am impressed. I mean what the heck was that?

Please note, there will be spoilers so if you have taken a strangely long time to see this final episode like I have, you might want to stop here. :>>

The last few episodes leading up to the finale were very intense. I enjoyed seeing all the conflicts coming to a head, even if I didn’t like seeing Bobby and Sil get shot. But the finale, it was… well very unsatisfying, and I am not the only one to think so. After it aired in the US, there was a great amount of anger from fans who felt gypped by the ending, but then you had the other camp who appreciated it for its artistic merit. That David Chase, the show’s creator, left it up to us, or left clues in there for us.

Honestly, I understand that there could be a heck of a lot of symbolism littered throughout the show, from the cat representing Schrodinger’s cat, to the fact that Tony eats an orange early on in the show possibly being a reference to the orange equaling death in the Godfather, to some people hypothosising that Tony is actually dead at the beginning of the show – hence the moment of silence on the bed that suddenly has white sheets – and the rest is his death dream… the list goes on!

I have meandered my way around the web and the theory that stands out the most is that Tony is shot in the end. That, as Bobby told him earlier, you never hear it coming, and that the orange cat was indeed a bad omen, as Paulie insisted, and its fixation on death – a death to be laid solely at the feet of Tony, mind you – was a warning of what was to come.

There is also a rumor that a movie may be in the works, however Chase said it isn’t something being planned at this stage, something for which I am glad really. So far, TV to movie adaptations are by and large pretty crap.

So… I don’t like the ending, I really don’t. Its like when you watch No Country for Old Men, you are left in the end feeling very angry and dissatisfied, in spite of completely understanding the meaning and intention of the ending, you are, nonetheless, looking for entertainment, and it is not entertaining to watch the scumbag-sociopath win. Likewise, it is very damn unsatisfying to watch an entire series – especially as a box set of DVDs so you see them all within a fortnight – to at the end be given this vague subtle arthouse ending.

Sopranos wasn’t vague, it wasn’t subtle, it wasn’t nice, it wasn’t artsy – except maybe for Tony’s dreams – but what it was was harsh, brutal, unrestricted, and this ending just felt so at odds with the series as a whole. I am not saying there weren’t multiple layers going on all the time, that what was a duality of meaning often going on, but it was still pretty damn straightforward, so this backhanded – and a little ham-handed if you ask me – approach to a finale was so damn annoying!

Home security becomming a necessity?

By blog on Apr. 11, 2009.

I noticed the recent slew of arrests in Manchester this week, and whilst the police have failed to turn up anything conclusive, I do feel that it might just be time for more personal security in the UK.

You see it in the news all the time that some felon was able to be caught due to footage from CCTV security cameras. I often think how useful it could be to have a CCTV system set up at ones own home, especially if you have a nice home, or a lot of nice stuff in your home. I am careful to a fault who I talk about my home contents with, especially as a gamer with a computer worth a few thousand – see, careful still! – I don’t want the wrong person hearing that sort of information and getting certain bad ideas. These sorts of things can give us a greater sense of ease, and I like the thought of that.

I also like the thought that my home could end up a secure as a James Bond mansion! Seriously, have you seen the groovy stuff you can get your hands on these days!? Bond would have given up a weeks worth of shaken martinis for some of the awesome spy software and hardware you can get now! I love the thought of feeling like a spy, with all the cool gear, but without having to be shot at and all the other negative aspects of being a spy.

Another thing I have always found fascinating and possibly useful is vehicle tracking. I would want to know where someone is just so I could mutter the line ‘target is inbound, eta 6 minutes’. How awesome would that be!? You would also never have to wonder if someone was late! Someone turns up at your house late, they say ’sorry, the traffic was murder’. You could reply with ‘no it wasn’t, you just stopped too long at McDonalds getting lunch’…

I think I may have watched too many spy movies… but I still like the idea of making my home more secure. Its a good excuse to play with all these nifty spy thingies anyway, so I am sticking to it.

Where’s that rabbit?

By blog on Apr. 11, 2009.

Its Easter this weekend, as I am sure you all know, and I have to say, I quite like Easter. I am a fan of good food, and good chocolate is no exception! This blog entry shall be about the many wonders, as well as tribulations, of Easter.

Finding good chocolate. This can be rather difficult sometimes, as you don’t just want to get the same thing for each person over and over. You want to get something you know they will like, but not the exact same rabbit year after year. My SO goes insane over anything with hazelnut praline in it… absolutely bonkers. So it really isn’t difficult to shop for her, find a nice, good quality egg casket with hazelnut praline in it and she is set. This is good, because she is always number one to shop for, so it makes you feel like the rest of the shopping is going to be easy because it was easy to find something for her. Then I shop for my parents… my mother loves Lindt chocolate, which is sort of simple, but also sort of difficult to not end up getting her the same thing every year. I try to make sure I get a different box set every year. My father loves rocklea road, which again is nicely straightforward to shop for, as there is a fairly wide variety of eggs and caskets that are rocklea road themed.

Now of course, there is a certain issue we all face when we shop for such things… all the other shoppers! I think Easter is almost, and it is really, really close, as bad a time go shopping as Christmas. We all know what the crowds can be like, especially if you are like me and don’t bother with Easter shopping until the Wednesday before Easter. The difference between Easter and Christmas shopping is that during Easter, everything is really close together… everyone is after the same thing! At Christmas, you have whole department stores that have nearly everything you could imagine… all through the entire store… not in the same little area of the store. I still think it is worse at Christmas, because everyone seems to go a little crazy when they are Christmas shopping.

I also really like to eat the lovely chocolate that I get from my SO and parents… yeah that’s a rather nice part of Easter too.

Tech things I don’t know

By blog on Apr. 11, 2009.

That incident with that terrible store the other day got me to thinking. You see, in spite of working exclusively in the tech support field for the last three years, there are some fairly basic techish things that I have no idea how to do. I thought if I compiled a list of things I would like to know how to do, then maybe I would go out and learn these things… or not… whichever.

As I said to the stupid store manager, I don’t know how to copy a game disc. I know it could be as straight forward as copying the files onto ones computer and then over to another DVD, but then again, it could actually be a heck of a lot more complicated than that… I really don’t know… And in some ways I don’t want to know, because I wouldn’t want to illegally copy games… But then I thought, having a back up of every game I own? Well now that does sound appealing! I would actually like to have a back up, just in case the disc gets scratched or lost, then I won’t have to fork out for the game again.

I also don’t know how to backup my DS cartridges into ROMS, and again, I would like to have back ups of my games so that if anything were to happen to the cartridge, I could still play my game. Or even better, if I could backup all my games into ROMS, I could use an R4 and carry multiple games with me all the time, without having to swap the cartridges over! That is very appealing, especially when traveling, as those little boxes can take up a surprising amount of space, and having it all on one game card already inside the DS would be excellent!

I would also like to know how to set up my own website… this is something I know next to nothing about and yet would love to have my own. I am not sure to what purpose I would have said site, but just having one that is mine is rather appealing.

I need a new phone

By blog on Apr. 9, 2009.

My current home phone is rather annoying. You see, it is extremely quiet, it is in my study and if you are in any other room of the small unit I share with my SO, you can’t hear it at all. So often I could have been home all day, but in another room of the house, and walk into my study to find a few missed calls on there. Now, I would have screened them anyway, but it is annoying to find that you did actually want to speak to one of the people who called you, only to now not be able to get a hold of them.

So I am going to get a new one, and I figure why not look into a new phone system while I am at it? I know from my recent banking experience that it really does pay to shop around. Whilst this isn’t the most thrilling prospect, experience tells me it really is a good idea.

I know I want a cordless, I mean why get a phone where you will be stuck in the same place all the time. Especially for those really long phone conversations with family, where you have to get up and move around because you really didn’t want to be on the phone in the first place and never, ever, for this long.

I actually run my home phone through my modem at the moment, so I have to use mains power to run it, so I want one of these when they come out. Come to think of it, I would have to use mains power anyway, to run the answering machine…

I never go with a funny answering machine message, it just seems a little silly to me, but I have to say, George’s answering machine message in Seinfeld was hands down the best I have ever heard.

I have also always wanted a really sleek black cordless phone, not one of those oddly flat ones, they are ugly, but a nice shiny high-tech looking one. My current one is grey and blue with an orange display… I don’t know who chose that colour scheme. I suppose the orange display would be okay if it were black, or all grey, but add that extra colour in there and it is just odd.

One more turn!

By blog on Apr. 9, 2009.

There are certain games that inspire ‘Onemoreturnitis’ in us. Most gamers will know what I am talking about here, those gaming sessions where you really meant to stop at 11:00pm and the next time you look at the time it is 3:00am. I am going to list the top three games that have had this effect on me.

First off, Civilization I, II, III, and IV have all had more than a fair share of my gaming hours to date. It’s just one of those games! It’s hard to choose a favorite from the series, as they have all been so enjoyable. I have spent days on end playing this game, only stopping for food and to clean up. I also really enjoy the Civilopedia in each game, learning about all the factions and units, and of course the history of all the Wonders; it really is fun and you can lose a heck of a lot of time just reading, not even playing! What is it that makes this game so addictive? A few things that come to mind are being able to save at any time, which means when you play for a little longer you are not roped into a specific amount of time or furthering of your current goals, so you end up playing longer for some reason. Also the ease of turns, you hit enter and a second later its your turn again! And the constant completion factor, ‘just one more turn and I will have built Stonehenge!’ has kept me going time after time. Ahh, the memories.

Next up is Harvest Moon in its many incarnations, though Rune Factory was my recent favorite for two reasons. The game was more in-depth than the previous ones, and the DS is the perfect medium for the game, due to its portability and Harvest Moon’s pick up and play ability. Rune Factory was also the first in the series that allowed you to save without sending your character to sleep. I love the combination of the traditional aspects of Harvest Moon, farming and raising animals, with the more RPG oriented fighting in the caves. The game is bright and happy to look at, and the animals are somewhat offensively cute. ) I don’t know where my head has been for the last little while, as I just realised the sequel to Rune Factory is out… I am getting it… right now! This one has a slightly more enchanted look to the game world too, which looks great. This game draws you in for day after day with much the same mechanic of Civilization’s building/unit/wonder completion. Tomorrow my next harvest of sweet potatoes will be ready, I will just harvest those and then water and then I will feed my sheep and oh yeah I need more ore to upgrade my axe… and so on and so forth. That is why that game is so hard to put down, and you can lose so much time – or miss your bus stop – if you aren’t careful!

This list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning The Sims, both 1 and 2. This was another game where I meant to be off to sleep at a reasonable hour only to find it was 3:00am. Again with the Sims, you could save at any time, so you never felt that if you played for a couple more minutes you would be stuck playing a lot longer, I don’t know exactly why this means I end up playing so much longer… it makes me feel rather contrary, to be honest, but there it is. Sims also has some of that regular completion thing going on… One more day at work and I should get a promotion! Of course as soon as you get that promotion you realise if you get one more friend you will be able to be promoted again! And on and on and on until you really need to be going to bed as you have to be up in a few short hours. Then there was also the time where I could only afford one block of carpet after each day of work so I had to keep going to work, I mean, how could I leave my sim with a grass floor!?

Musings of a long time gamer

By blog on Apr. 8, 2009.

The other day I was stuck on a really crowded bus, and the only thing I had to listen to, thanks to my iPod going flat, was the idiotic ramblings of a few teenagers. It was rather too much to bear, listening to their ongoing drivel, so I had to tune out… find something in my own mind that would sufficiently distract me.

I got to thinking about old games that I played and played and played when I was younger. The games I could play in my sleep I knew so well! The games that took root in my mind, and served as a platform for my gaming preferences to this day.

First and foremost, I think Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past would have been one of my most played and enjoyed games in my childhood. I am by no means the only one to think this game is one of those amazing games that you can go back and play over and over again. This is one of those games where all the aspects come together so perfectly it brings a smile to your face to think of it.

One could never think about the greatest games of their childhood without thinking about Super Mario World, either. This was such a fun game, so full of colour, great characters, and easy pick up and playability. Working your way through the entire game, getting every coin in every level, unlocking the Special World, and how cool were all those level names? The first time I saw ‘Gnarly’ I was so happy.

Going a little further back, when I had a Sega Mastersystem II, I played a heck of a lot of Alex Kidd in Miracle World as it came inbuilt on the console. Now, I recognise this game wasn’t all that good, but it is one that stuck out in my mind a heck of a lot. There is actually a heck of a lot wrong with this game, the complete and utter lack of saving, for one, but it was still fun to pick up and play for five minutes. Maybe I just liked the bright colours?

This is why I buy off ebay

By blog on Apr. 8, 2009.

A few days ago, I felt a pang to play a certain game I no longer had a copy of, Medieval II Total War. I have played this game in the past, but gave up because my old computer shut down whenever I tried to play it for a while. So with my new computer running Empire Total War III, I figured I could surely play the previous game with no trouble at all.

When one has a gaming pang like this, you want to play the game right away, not wait for it to turn up in the mail if you buy it online. So I go into town and it happens to be at the first place I check. I buy it, take it home, and the discs were so scratched that I couldn’t even install the damn game. This is due, in my opinion, to the fact that they keep the discs not in the original packaging, no that would be too simple, they take the discs out and put them in plastic slips which invariably scratch the damn things.

So I bought the game that night on ebay and took the game back today. When I tried to take the game back I got massive attitude from the dude who runs the store, the first thing he said was that the scratch came from my disc drive. This was utterly impossible because the disc that he was referring to was the expansion pack disc which never made it into my computer because the original game wouldn’t install in the first place. He just shrugged at that and said he would clean the offending discs, which any gamer knows is actually advised against on game packaging. I said that I am a tech person and I know what I am talking about.

At this point he accused me of copying the discs… he called me a thief. I told him I just wanted a refund because I bought it off ebay, this really made him angry and he said that I was being snarky and that he refused to give me a refund because he didn’t like my attitude. I offered to produce a receipt from the copy of the game that I just bought off ebay, which he just gave a Neanderthalic shrug to… I told him I don’t even know how to copy game discs. Nothing.

I said I had attitude because this had happened multiple times at this store, at which point he said that maybe it was my attitude. I couldn’t believe that stupid a statement and queried how my attitude could have any effect at all on a scratched disc… again with the Neanderthalic shrug.

So in the end I got store credit for the games. I don’t know what the heck I would buy from this place, every time I buy a game there is something wrong with it. I once bought a supposedly new DS game from this place and there was a save file already on it…

I am thinking of picking up some DS accessory pack… I mean, they can’t ruin those, they are still in original packaging!!!

So yes, this is why I buy off ebay, because I can see how much positive feedback they have and I can see that the product is brand new, still in factory sealed packaging! So I now have to learn to never give in to gaming pangs.

Even though…

By blog on Apr. 8, 2009.

… I said I disliked shopping, there is actually a certain type of product that I enjoy shopping for, bathroom fittings. I do realise that that sounds a little strange, but I find there is something soothing about thinking of all the great showers you could have if you just had that shower head. Or how good it would be to have a spa bath. Or how nice it would be if I didn’t have to shove my head in my tiny basin to get to the absurdly short spout so I can rinse my mouth after brushing my teeth.

For the reasons listed above and more, as that list could go on a very long time, I really do enjoy taking a walk around a bathroom fittings store, or even better looking at them online, where I wont be bothered by people who are trying to sell me stuff. So, because of heat from my shower getting into the wall behind bathroom tiles, the wall itself has actually bowed outwards slightly, causing a bunch of my tiles to crack. So whilst that isn’t great, I can’t help but see the silver lining to this, I get to put in all new tiling. Which of course means that I will be putting in new bathroom fixtures too to go with the new tiles!

I am so tired of my white bathroom, I don’t care if colours close me in more. I am in a bathroom, I like to be closed in! I am considering having all the fixtures gold, and going with black tiles. It would be so rich and luxuriant!

Whichever way I go, I know it is going to be enjoyable to have a nice clean fresh bathroom again. The line of cracked tiles down the side of the shower wall is rather depressing. You see all these unbroken tiles all lined up, all happy, bright, and unbroken, and then you hit these disheveled, ungainly tiles that make you think you’re just like them and in spite of only just getting up, you want to go back to bed because really, what’s the point?

Yeah, cracked tiles make me feel a little Nihilistic. ) That’s why the new bathroom is going to be so awesome! :>> I mean, if that is how those cracked tiles can make me feel on a Monday morning, how good will the new warm, unbroken, fresh tiles make me feel!? :>>

A brand new book!

By blog on Apr. 7, 2009.

I am about to finish, about to finish, HA! I have around one hundred pages left to read in my current book, Reaper’s Gale by Steven Erikson. There are two reasons why this is a really good thing. One, this book is damn awesome and I am looking forward to seeing how certain things pan out, and two, I already have a brand new copy of Toll the Hounds that I picked up today!

I love a new book, I really do. It is all pristine, the spine is un-creased, the pages are yet to be opened, the book sits perfectly flat. There is also, with an unread book, a sense that you are an explorer. You are the very first person to watch this story unfold, share its triumphant victories and harrowing defeats. Perhaps that is just me, and the fact that it is really late is making me somewhat poetic in nature. I’m not sure, and I don’t really care, as I really am looking forward to this next book. And, thanks to the well paced writing of Erikson, I don’t have to wait a couple of years before the next book, either, as it is scheduled for August 27th!

Great authors inspire this Christmas like joy in me, waiting for years to finally see the end to the saga that is the Wheel of Time, or reading those final chapters in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, hoping that George R R Martin lives up to his bloody promise of delivering another book… sometime… soonish… maybe… FINISH THE DAMN BOOK ALREADY, GEORGE!!!

Yeah, I have been waiting for Dance of Dragons for a few years now, since 2005 when he released A Feast for Crows. See, the thing with that book was, that only half, HALF, the character list even made a damn appearance in the book. Why, I hear you ask? Because ol’ Georgie boy had written the bloody thing so long that he had to separate it into two books. Right. Now. Okay. The thing is, when this happened, it was really frustrating for me because you miss out on some of the best characters, in my opinion. But there was hope! That hope came in the form of George saying he was almost done with A Dance of Dragons, so it wouldn’t be long before we got the rest of the point of view characters. So. Four years later. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. WHERE’S THE BOOK, GEORGE?

For the loyal fans, he is really being a git. I mean, he is working on completely different projects, completely different books that he co-wrote with other authors; this angers me no end. His story is just good enough that I will pick up the next book in the series, but seriously, his piss-farting around has seriously diminished what was a great set of books.

And I was feeling so upbeat until I remembered I was waiting for that book. Bah! By the time George finishes the bloody book, I will have read the next two installments of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series! Maybe three, and will have finished the whole lot! Now that’s a thought that makes me a little happier and a little less angry.