Taking Back English

Over the last few decades English as a language has been degraded by various factors to the point where it's becoming almost as convoluted as the plot of a Tom Clancy novel.

Homosexuality is an abnormal sexual orientation.

That sentence is a perfect example of what I am talking about the ultra left nutjobs would scream about hate speech and descrimination, and the ultra right nutjobs would nod their heads along sagely.

However, they are both fucking wrong. Lets look at the word abnormal, it means not normal, and normal means something common to the majority of a group, that's all it means, it makes no moral judgement about the validity of the practice or circumstances, just that it is common to the majority, the same can be said about the word abnormal, simply that it is part of a minority of a group.

It was once normal to own slaves, to beat ones wife, and to go out killing, raping, and pillaging neighbouring villages.

It was also once abnormal to think that all people are equal, that violence should be the last resort, and that we should try to get along.

Without proper context the sentence above is truly neutral, it doesn't pass judgement either way, the words are simple and factually accurate. Now I chose a sentence that would provoke strong feelings in those that read it, my own feelings on the matter are irrelevant but well known, here's a hint I'm for any-one doing anything so long as everyone involved is willing and above the age of consent.

What does matter in this instance is that people can't recognise context any-more, they instead try to invent new phrases and words to avoid offending people, rather then use a perfectly good word such as abnormal they come up with crap like non-standard, which is just plain dumb.

And it's not just the left wing PC wackadoodles that are to blame either, it's also the right wing fuckwits who assign their own flawed moral values to neutral words. Words matter, they can make you cry, make you happy, or make you angry, I don't think anyone could dispute that, but without context they are fucking neutral.

So in closing I'd just like to say, stop fucking with my language you god-damn twits, use your damn brains and recognise context.

Windows 7: The Triumph over mediocrity

Over the last decade or so Microsoft has had an interesting series of Operating System releases, and established a trend of hits and misses.

Don't believe me? Well tell any techie you know you've got a problem with your computer running Windows Me and watch their face, that look of pure unadulterated horror will explain everything. Windows Me is widely considered in tech circles to be the bastard child of Satan and a pit viper and is regarded with about as much warmth as Bill Gates at a Linux convention.

Windows Me took everything about Windows 98, a decent enough O/S in its own right, and tried to marry it with Windows 2000, the resulting horror was just ugg. Don't get me wrong, every now and then you'll come across someone running Windows Me that just loves it, they some how managed to get the "just right" combination of luck and hardware to let the beast run smoothly, but that's about as rare as an honest politician.

After Windows Me came Windows XP, XP was a quantum leap in O/S', it was fast, elegant, and stable, that isn't to say it didn't come with problems, it did; the disaster of the first time activation was there.

It did away with the legacy of Windows 9x and moved onto Windows 2000 solid server style base and made itself the desktop of choice for a hell of a lot of people. Windows XP is still one of the best O/S' out there, powerful and stable, pretty much everything anyone wants.

Now lets jump forward to Windows Vista, now personally I think it gets a slightly over hyped rep for being crappy, but it did throw away a lot of things Windows XP worked hard to overcome, XP removed the stigma of the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), since it became very rare, and the need to reboot every 30 god-damn seconds that was common in Windows 9x machines. Vista took that hard won ground and did a Olympic level sprint back over it to lay a turd.

Oh sure Vista's stablity wasn't as bad as say Windows Me, but damn, it was a step down from XP, and it was a resource hog, actually saying that is unfair to hogs, Vista sucked every available resource it could, from hard drive space to RAM to CPU time, it was all your resources are belong to us Microsoft style, over time a lot of the issues in Windows Vista were fixed by patches and service packs, but Vista never recovered from the opening rounds of "oh my god this sucks"

Now we get to the meat, Windows 7 RC (that is not the final version ffs) is a better O/S then Vista after three years of extra work from launch, a machine running Vista that struggles and chugs will run Windows 7 without blinking, its got all the stability of XP, all the pretties of Vista, and its still not the final version!

I've heard it called "What Vista should've been" and I agree totally, while I only made the jump after my Vista install died a horrible death and I wasn't willing to head down to Portland to find my DVD, I don't regret it at all, it's an exceptional operating system. I recommend to anyone running XP or Vista to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as the final release hits stores soon.

Fable 3



Here's hoping it has a decent story this time.


(FaceBook users click the link "Original Post" to see the video)

News Flash: Australia gets screwed... again.


A few months ago I spoke about Games on Demand for the Xbox 360 and I was fairly excited, well, not so much anymore, I held out hope the leaked prices were just place holders for a few weeks until the whole thing went live on the 11th of August.

Australia has a long tradition of getting boned with gaming pricing, Yahtzee calls it the nicest beaches tax, and hey, we're a realitively small market and shipping costs, so I could sort of understand it, even if I did hate the fact I was paying over double of what people in other nations were.

Then comes the stupidity of the Xbox live Games on Demand service, here is the most glaring example, the prices of games aren't set by a single office, which would make sense since its an Internet service, but by the local arm of Microsoft's xbox live division, who in Australia (link) think 24/7 access is worth $50 over RRP for a 2/3 year old game!

Mass Effect is an admittedly awesome game, I've played it through 2/3 times now on both the PC and Xbox, but it is not worth $99 in download form when it can be picked up new at any major chain store for $49.95, or even cheaper at some other stores, or cheaper still preowned, an option you don't get with downloads.

Now I was all sorts of keen when it came to downloadable games, after all my ISP offers free traffic to the Xbox live service, and its hellishly fast, but come-on, no disc, and no chance of resale later if you decide the game sucks the donkey.

Not only that, but its only $20 USD for US Xbox owners... that's about $25AUD, if I didn't already own Mass Effect, I'd of been willing to pay that for it, its a good price, hell I'd of even been willing to pay $30-$35 for it, but come the fuck on, $99 you have got to be fucking kidding me Microsoft!

Yes data server space costs more in Australia then the US, but not that much more! Stop fucking ripping us off!

G.I. Joe - The Rise of Cobra

Want to hear a shocker? I actually enjoyed this movie, I went expecting another movie to rape my childhood memories... just like Transformers... however...

It's actually good!

Sure some of the plot is a bit twisted, the CGI is about normal for a big Hollywood movie, but god-damn, it's actually a fun movie.

Some of the actors phoned it in, but some were just dynamite, like Chris Eccleston who is plain awesome in anything he does.

It doesn't pretend to be anything other then it is, a movie for geeks, action fans, and kids, that's it.

One thing I don't like however is Scarlet having no Southern accent... *cry*

Other then that I'm looking forward to the next movie, I expect they'll make one now.