Alfreido's Blog

I blame you, iTunes!

Here I was, searching through the dance albums on iTunes when, whilst looking at another album (which incidentally also sucked), iTunes gleefully alerted me that listeners had also bought 24 Carat Gold by a German dance band called Scooter. I quickly Wikipedia’d the band and had a look at their discography. Funnily enough, I came across Ramp (The Logical Song), a song I used to enjoy listening to on the radio during my high school days (although the high-pitched voice grinded my insides like a sandpaper sandwich). I though I would give them a chance and proceeded to buy the album.

Boy, did I make a mistake or what?

I don’t know if it’s just what the Germans are into… repeticious, loud and overbearing music that automatically send you into a frenzy of finding the first object to rip your ears off with. Hell, Rammstein sound like they are trying to scream out a huge hairball caught in their throats in nearly 90% of the songs they have released. So maybe Scooter are just following proper German procedures when developing a record. But Scooter bring to the table a whole set of new annoyances as well.

You see, a typical Scooter includes the folllowing traits:

• Crowd cheering loops played in the background, to convince the listener that a lot of other people listen to this shit.
• H.P. Baxxter’s vocals have reverb effects applied to it to give the feeling that the performance is live (however, in some songs, the reverb is so crap it sounds like they were recording the vocals in a bathroom)
• A pitch-shifted voice sings the chorus. I didn’t know that Alvin and the Chipmunks were part of this band?
• The band uses any one of the following words and phrases (or a variant of it) almost exclusively during their songs:
  - Pump it up
  - Make some noise
  - Peace and unity
  - Faster
  - Harder
  Ironically, they could use both the phrases “Hit your face” and “Peace and Unity” together in the same song. Classy.
• The same bass drum and synth played throughout an entire album. Incidentally, it doesn’t sound like they change the tempo much.

There are some songs that stand out as the penultimate of mediocrity in Scooter’s repitoire (I will admit, there were 2 or 3 songs I did enjoy, but out of 20 or 30 singles that Scooter have released, that’s hardly a great batting average). The Age of Love is almost a proverbial turkey slap to the face of James Cameron (some would argue he deserves it, though) and shows that using a sample of the theme from The Terminator is not going to make your song better. Rebel Yell lives up to the stereotype that techno remixes just don’t work, especially when sourcing from rock music. Nessaja has an irritating chorus that you can barely understand, and the beat is sub-standard with pathetic synth. And H.P. Baxxter has the audacity to call this tripe drum and bass. Clearly he has no idea what constitutes a drum and bass song because It certainly doesn’t involve squeeky choruses and repetitous rubbish.

I’m honest, if I ever catch someone listening to this crap, I’ll turn their speakers/headphones off, I don’t care if I get smashed because of it.

A mate of mine asked me last night on MSN which operating system I prefer the most – considering that I use Linux at work (openSUSE 10.3 to be exact) at work and I use Windows XP at home (with Vista only a dual-boot away). I also own a MacBook Pro – unsurprisingly bundled with Macintosh OS X 10.5. Do you want to know my opinion? I hate them all equally, cos they all bring a case of FAIL in different areas:

Linux shits me because there is no solidarity in the community. Instead of all working together to create a kick-ass OS which shits all over Apple and Microsoft, they all decide to segregate and work on their own OS software. It also shits me that even the OS software directed towards absolute computer noobs still require some soft of computing expertise with Linux (I am not one of these noobs, but I digress).

Macintosh shits me because Apple insist on using their own standards and being a big supporter of copy protection software. Instead of using tried-and-tested standards for various things like audio and video, Apple force people to do things their way or hit the highway.

Windows shits me because Microsoft – even after numerous patches and service packs – hardly ever fix the bugs that actually matter, and usually instead throw in several products and features that hardly anyone use. Windows also shits me considering how much memory it insists on using (especially Vista) just to bloody run – and you’re expected to have your programs fit into the 5% of memory not being used. Tried running games on that? It fucking sucks.

So… you won’t be getting any recommendation from me. I’ll let the fanboys give you their opinion. Have fun decoding that clusterfuck.

In Silico, by Australian drum-and-bass group Pendulum, is a strong example of diversity and how it can sometimes be more harmful rather the helpful. Touted as a collision between the smashing riffs of hard rock and the pounding beats of drum and bass, it’s unfortunate to say that this album will more than likely please neither crowd, with a sound too soft and melodic to satisfy the hard rock crowd, and not enough bass, a tempo too slow and a generic, commercial sound which will more than likely disappoint the drum and bass fans. I’m a real big fan of Pendulum, they are one my favourite bands, but I just cannot seem to connect and enjoy this album on the same level as Hold your Colour, Pendulum’s previous album which was released in 2006.
But wait, there’s more…

Hail the fucking lord, that’s all I have to say.

Seriously, I am really loving my MacBook Pro at the moment. If you need to know, I have the 2.4ghz Intel Core-Duo version, with a 256mb 8600m GT, and it is seriously a slick, speedy piece of hardware with few faults. The only faults I could pick up were the lack of a double-buttom touchpad to emulate the left and right clicks of a normal mouse. Seriously, Apple, well done your OS is simple enough to use with only one mouse button. But for those actually living in the 21st century, we prefer to have the 2-button salute to do all the things the left click doesn’t do. Holding ‘Control’ and using the click button doesn’t cut it. I also noticed the laptop does get quite hot, negating the ‘lap’ in laptop. But those are the only things I can think of.

Regarding Mac OS X, I’m finding it more and more to be my OS of choice. I just love the form factor of the OS itself, it definitely looks more sleek and sexy than Windows XP, and arguably Windows Vista. I was one of the few who liked the look of Windows Vista, even if it runs like a dog with his feet stapled to the floor. It is also very awesome that Mac programs are installed by these single .dmg files as opposed to the clusterfuck that is the Windows program installers. To its credit though, Windows has a lot more programs available to it, something I found quite daunting to begin with, but I have gradually found Mac counterparts.

Speaking of Windows, I do have it installed in Boot Camp, to satisfy my mobile gaming needs. I installed World in Conflict, and have actually found with some tweaking, I can play the game on 1440×900 (the default resolution of the Apple MacBook Pro 15″ screens) at a very playable frame rate, and it looks very mint. I have been playing LAN games with my brothers and have had some good sessions on it. I don’t know if Apple intended it but these laptops could easily become a good gaming laptop. They have a lot of untapped power under the hood.

Overall, it’s a very awesome laptop, I’m loving it immensly. Go and get yourself one if you can afford it.

I got a MacBook Pro Friday last week through work, and I must say, I’m sold on Mac OS X 10 being better than Windows in areas. Watch this space cos in 2 weeks I’ll give my overall impressions on the MacBook Pro when I’ve sufficiently used it enough to be classed as ‘used to it’.

I’ve got Windows XP installed using Boot Camp as well, so it’s not like I’m missing out on Windows

Yesterday, whilst searching for domains that I wanted to buy for a new project of mine (more details on that in the post below), I had a thought to see if I could buy ‘benthomson.com‘. Turns out it’s already bought, by another Ben Thomson. I had to go see what this alternative Ben Thomson was all about.

Apparently my alter-ego is a somewhat famous tuba player over in Britain, although it seems he is trialling for the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. He appears to also be 21 years of age, although, this could be wrong as I didn’t see any indication of when the page was updated. He also has a boofy haircut, much like how my hair used to be when I was in high school, although now my haircut is still just weird. He also wears glasses, which I used to wear (I don’t anymore since my eyes corrected themselves… well… sort of).

There’s just one thing wrong with this Ben Thomson: He designed his site using Microsoft Office Live.

Incidentally, Mr. Alter Thomson, if you wish to contact me, I would love to help a ‘brother-by-name’ out with going in the right direction, website wise.

Anyways, I’ll throw it out there to everyone else… what do your alter-egos get up to?

Just so you are all in the know, I have opened up a new blog called Grand Theft Alfreido, for all my rants about everything to do with gaming. All posts related to gaming will go in there now, keeping this blog for serious discussions, rants outside of the games industry and web development tidbits. So check it out when you have the chance!

I’m all for a good protest. Nothing beats the feeling of just exorcising all the demons and letting loose at a bigger (or sometimes smaller) entity and letting them know just how insignificant they are in the eyes of the mob. But I have to disagree with all these pro-Tibet protests on the eve of the Olympics.

Let me clarify my position before you pro-Tibet people throw me on a stake and purge me in the fire. From the limited knowledge I have of China’s treatment of Tibet, they deserve all the scorn they get, but this is the Olympics. Every 4 years, numerous countries and nations gather across the world, put aside their petty differences, and in a very rare display of unity in these times, participate for the better part of a week in a grand sporting event. This is the very fundamentals, and by damn the nearest we’ll ever get, to some sort of world peace. And yet, just because the host country is doing a deplorable act to another country doesn’t mean you should ruin the Olympics for the other countries, some of whom have stated their disappointment at China’s treatment of Tibet, but choose to celebrate the Olympic spirit.

The Olympic torch, widely regarded as the spirit of the Olympics, has been put out on more than one occasion by protesters who, ironically, want peace in Tibet. So, for peace to happen in Tibet, these clowns are willing to stamp out the symbol of what I believe is the greatest example of peace in the world. I think these clowns should be arrested and jailed for treason, because by definition, putting out the flame constitutes you turning your back on peace with many of the countries around the world.

I know some of my words are strong, but I do feel very strongly about this sort of thing. I’m not even that big a fan of the Olympic Games but I do believe the symbolism behind it to be of high moral value.

If you guys want something to protest against, go and help Anonymous take on that Church.